From the Mind of SlimKirby

E3 2011

2011-06-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, SlimKirby here, and welcome to my E3 Update! =D

First off, I do want to quickly apologize for not making my May 2011 post like I said I was going to do, but there were some things that came up, and I just didn't have the time to do it. I was definitely thinking about it though, so I didn't forget entirely, but when it came down to the final few days of May, I just couldn't fit it into my schedule. But now that E3 is over, I am going to make good on this promise and give you my thoughts and impressions, mostly for the Nintendo stuff. =P

But I did not only watch the Nintendo stuff this time. In past years, I mostly just read up on what Sony and Microsoft did, but this year I actually sat down and watched their conferences as well. I'm obviously not going to go to in-depth with this, because this blog is affiliated with The Blargg Pit, which is Nintendo-based, so my focus will mostly be on the Big N. However, Sony and Microsoft are competitors though, so it may not be a bad thing to take a gander at what the opposition is up to.

Microsoft: Ok, regardless of what console's side you are on, and whether you are a fan, a fanboy, or just neutral across all levels of gaming; I think the one thing we can all agree on (and if you don't, there is obviously some ignorance, obliviousness, or denial at play) is that Microsoft just didn't cut it this year. To me, it just felt like they had a very narrow-minded focus, and a focus that won't really help them at this point in the console wars. Their main focus was obviously the Kinect, as nearly every single game focused on "Kinectability" as I like to call it, and it just didn't seem like they brought anything that new or exciting to the table. Now, don't get me wrong, I do like the technology behind the Kinect, and I think it's cool how it works, but for gaming, I'm just not that sold on it.

Now, since I am obviously a big Nintendo fan, some of you might find that a bit hypocritical, especially since Nintendo was obviously the originator of a fully motion controlled home console, but I feel for the most part, Nintendo has limited that use to the point where it hasn't gotten too overused or repetitive, keeping the heavy use for party games like Wii Sports, the dance games, and Mario Party 8. I mean, look at the most popular Wii games....Super Mario Galaxy, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Animal Crossing: City Folk...those games for the most part aren't fully-motioned controlled. You still move with the control stick (or pad), and the motion controls are really only used for spinning to find star bits, hand pounding the ground, or catching fish. Kinect seems to want you to use motion controls for everything, and that just seems like a bit much, especially for some games. In fact, two games that especially come to mind are Kinect Star Wars and Fable: The Journey. Because of the heavy motion control interface, it feels like those games were demoted to on-rail hacking and slashing games, when they could have been so much more than that. I don't know...it just feels like the whole purpose of Kinect is to overload on motion control as much as they can, when that was never really the intention to begin with, with Nintendo, and with Sony now as well.

And that was pretty much what the entire conference focused on....just that one aspect of the Xbox360. They didn't have a new console or any hardware announcements; just pretty much what they had last year, and that's kind of a shame, especially considering how hard Sony and Nintendo came swinging this year. So yeah, I was just kind of disappointed with Microsoft this year, and that seems to be the general impression of most gamers as well. I will admit that I've never really been that impressed with Microsoft anyway, but right now, this has just given me even more justification to stay that way and has not convinced me to purchase a XBox360 or any games, which is the opposite direction of what I think they should be going for. Who knows, maybe Microsoft will take this year as a lesson and analyze what they need to do to stay in the video game console market and come back next year with a lot more success. But for now, I feel like they just didn't pull off anything that impressive, and I don't think any Halo announcements are ever going to change that.

Sony: Aside from being a PS2 owner and being satisfied with that purchase, I will admit that I'm not much of a Sony person either. However, unlike Microsoft, I felt like Sony actually had a goal and a focus for this year's E3, and overall, they just had a better idea of what they were doing. Before the conference, I had a feeling that Sony was probably going to do the exact opposite of what Microsoft did and instead of overloading PSMove coverage, they would just drop it and not show anything. However, they actually ended up surprising me a little bit, and not only did they have PSMove coverage, I felt like they had just the right amount of coverage. And not only that, I also got the impression that they are only using it to enhance certain gameplay elements, not to overload the game with nothing but motion controls, which I think is a very good thing.

But aside from that, obviously the big news was that Sony is releasing the next Playstation handheld, called Playstation Vita. At this time, I'm still kind of unsure what to think of Vita. I mean, it looks like a neat piece of hardware, and unlike handhelds of the past, will actually provide Nintendo with some competition in the handheld market instead of getting stomped on by the iron foot of the Game Boy and DS, but a part of me is still just not that interested. For the time being though, it does look pretty cool and looks like it will have some sweet software to back it up, so it's at least doing its part in improving on the PSP....not that it was a hard challenge to beat.

Sony did a good job though and I definitely give them major props with what they had to show. I wouldn't say they had anything ground-breaking, but likewise, I can't really say there was anything I didn't like or hated either. Definitely a big improvement from last year, at least in my opinion.

So yeah, that's really all I am going to say about the Microsoft and Sony conferences. I'm sorry if you were expecting a little more, but I'm going to be saving most of my comments and thoughts for a podcast I will be doing soon with Odinspack33 and ShadowMarioXLI. I'll talk more about that on my channel though when the podcast actually goes up, so stay tuned for that!

Anyway, let's move on to Nintendo!

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Nintendo:

3 years ago, Nintendo had a pretty bad conference. 2 years ago, they brought it back together. And last year.....last year was just amazing and was a hard year to beat. Did Nintendo beat it this year though? With the announcement of Project Cafe (aka: Wii U) and with more news on the Nintendo 3DS and Zelda: Skyward Sword, Nintendo had good ground to start with. But what is the verdict? Let's start going through the actual conference from the very beginning to the end.

Zelda: Skyward Sword and Zelda 25th Anniversary - The first part of the show was pretty heavy on Zelda. They talked a little about future releases including Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time 3D, Link's Awakening for 3DS's eShop, and Four Swords for DSi Ware. They didn't really show much gameplay aside from trailers and the like, but so far, it's a lot of Zelda, which should make a lot of people happy. They also showcased the orchestral music of Skyward Sword and for the 25th Anniversary Celebration, which was pretty cool. However, as I said, it was pretty heavy on Zelda at the beginning there and could have used that time on some of the other games that were shown after the conference.

3DS Titles:

Mario Kart - Mario Kart meets Pilotwings.....why are there hang gliders? XD Ok, the hang gliders were kind of odd at first, but I think Nintendo knows what they are doing and I'm sure things will seem a bit more sensible when the game is shown more. I am excited though because I do love Mario Kart.

Star Fox 64 3D - Not much extra was really shown from last year, but it is interesting to see what they are doing with the multiplayer and how they are using the 3DS camera.

Super Mario 3D - This game is looking really good so far. The platforming looks as impressive as it is in Galaxy, and that's a really good sign. Also...the return of the Tanooki suit......EPIC! =O

Kid Icarus: Uprising - As I said at the end of last year's conference, this title is definitely shaping up to look truly amazing, and I feel pretty much the same right now as well. Interested to see how the multiplayer works as well.

Luigi's Mansion 2 - Biggest software surprise of this year by far. I was definitely not expecting this, but there it was! Interested to see how big this game actually is, since it is apparently not just one mansion, but I am glad to see a new Luigi in production.

Nintendo Wii U:

There were a few other things in the conference before the WiiU closer, but they were very brief and pretty much had to do with the new console anyway. That aside, the Wii U is looking great! It's still fairly early, and even I'm still a little unsure of all the features that will be included, but for now....graphics look great, tremendous 3rd party support, and a very interesting premise when it comes to the controller design, which is perhaps the biggest thing about the Wii U. It seems like Nintendo wants to put a little more emphasis on handheld gaming, with the ability to use the controller like a portable version of the system. I'm sure this will definitely bring out a lot of criticisms from gamers, but in a way, I could almost compare this to what Sony is doing with the PSV, as it also had a similar feature as well. Again though, it is still fairly early, and I am really interested to see how this develops. Also, who is to say that this is the end of the features? I'm sure there will be plenty of more things revealed about the WiiU as time goes on.

2 New Smash Bros. Games - No footage given, but the announcement of 2 new Super Smash Bros. games is something to definitely get excited about! One for the 3DS and one for the WiiU! Perfect! =)

As for the actual conference, it did end at the WiiU, but there were plenty of other game revelations. I'll go over a few of them right now!

Mario Party 9 - Yes guys...I am aware of this, and I have to say that it is about time! And not just for the game either......I was getting a little tired of all the "Will you do Mario Party 9 when it comes out?" comments when there was no confirmation of the game whatsoever. But no...the game is coming, and I couldn't be happier! I watched the trailer and it's looking really good! It seems like there will be a lot of different modes though, as a lot of the footage revolved around all of the characters traveling together in a car across the board, while there were also solo movements as well. It'll be interesting to see how this game develops, but I am looking forward to it!

Kirby Wii and Kirby Mass Attack - Two new kirby games? That's pretty sweet! Especially this soon after Epic Yarn...but I guess that was a different company that worked on it. Anyway, both games look fun, especially the Wii game! There looks to be a lot of very interesting powers, and the ability for 4-player co-op? (that's at least my impression from the trailer) That just makes it sweeter! =P I'm still not sure what to think about the DS game Mass Attack though. I would love to see more, but it looks pretty unique so far. Kinda has an Amazing Mirror type of gameplay, but with more stylus controls....which is definitely interesting.

Paper Mario 3DS and Animal Crossing 3DS - I grouped these two together because they were technically revealed last year, but with no major developments this year....just that they are still in development and with some new screen shots. Both are still looking good and I am definitely looking forward to both of them. Animal Crossing seems to be adding a few new features, which is cool, and Paper Mario looks to have the same, incredible gameplay of the other Paper Mario games and Mario RPGs, so both should definitely be hits. =)

So yeah, those are just some of the things Nintendo is working on! There is obviously a lot more going on that I didn't cover, but again, more is going to be discussed during the E3 podcast when we get around to it. I just wanted to cover a few things for this entry. Overall, I thought Nintendo did great! The focus was obviously a little more on hardware this time around, but I don't think that was necessarily a bad thing, because they still had software regardless. In fact, the software coverage was perhaps on the device that needed it the most, the 3DS. So yeah, things are looking pretty good. Next year we should see a treasure trove of stuff for the WiiU and more exciting things on the 3DS, and Nintendo should continue to be in a great position. Good work Ninty! =)

Things I Think Should Have Been There - Nintendo.....where the hell is Pikmin 3? Are you just teasing us with the game now? =P Haha, the Pikmin 3 info, or rather, lack of info, doesn't really bother me that much, because despite it, they are still giving us some excellent stuff regardless. However, this is the 3rd E3 since they first briefly mentioned it was in production at E3 2008, and besides words, we haven't really seen anything or know anything about it. I know Nintendo probably has their reasons, but I was really looking forward to some answers this year and kind of left a little empty-handed. E3 technically isn't over yet, so something could still come out of left field, but if Nintendo really wanted to make a splash, I think Pikmin 3 could have created waves. Also, it's been awhile since we have heard anything from F-Zero, Star Fox, and Fire Emblem (just to name a few) as well. I mean, Star Fox has the 64 remake, and Fire Emblem is working on a remake of the 3rd Japanese game for America as well, but I'm talking original games here....and there has been a bit of a drought. I'm sure we'll hear something eventually, but still, an announcement of some of these calibers could have taken Nintendo above and beyond! Just my opinion....

But yeah, that's really all I have to say about E3! Keep in mind, these are just my opinions, and if you guys want to share yours, go ahead! Also, stay tuned to my channel for an update on the podcast I'll be doing for more information!

Thank you for your time guys, see you later! =)

5/13/11 - Where the Hell Am I?

2011-05-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I have a short, quick update for you in regards to the blog.

As you guys know, it has been awhile since my last entry. In fact...this may be the longest hiatus I've had in the history of this blog's existence. I do apologize for this absence, but understand that for the most part, it hasn't been been unwarranted.

I did just finish my Spring semester of college about 2 weeks ago, and I was quite busy because of that semester. Even though this semester was probably my best semester in the four years I've been attending college, it was still quite a lot to take in terms of the class work. A three-month term paper, lots and lots of computer programming assignments (including languages I've never worked with before), busy-work out the whazoo, and an Algorithms class...which alone took up much of my free time as it was.....yeah, it wasn't exactly easy dealing with all of that. But in a way, I'm glad I put so much of my focus into my studies this semester, because I got an amazing GPA out of it. Unfortunately though, it did cause me to hit other things to much lesser extent, including my Youtube projects, as it pretty much forced me to stop doing daily updates (which is in theory, fine, because my videos can be twice as long as they were a year ago anyway, so a 1 day update is about 2 days worth of content back then), and of course this blog, which just seemed pointless to update when I barely had anything interesting to say regardless, and when all of my updates are on my channel and twitter anyway.

So yeah, that explains about a month and a half of my 2 month absence...but what about these last two weeks? I've gotten time to myself....I don't have a leaving-home job....there is no real excuse for me not to be updating this....right? Well, I actually agree with you guys here, because there is no excuse to why I haven't been updating. I mean, I guess I could say that since I am trying to do daily updates again, that it has taken a lot of my time away, but I reserve 3 days during every week to do recording, one for each of my 3 projects, and even then, that doesn't take a large part of my time, plus I have the other 4 days too. There have been other things as well, taking care of my dog while my parents are still working, spending time with my family in general, helping around the house when needed....but still, that doesn't require around-the-clock attention either. So what exactly could be my reason?

In all honesty, I just don't really have that much to talk about right now. Point blank, I think that's the only reason. First I give myself deadlines, but the deadlines only make me stressed to come up with anything to talk about. I take away the deadlines, and then I just leave it alone and don't do anything with it for several months. The only thing I can really think of to try is to find a balance of the two. You know, where I give myself a goal or a deadline, and if I somehow don't make it, it won't be a big deal and I can either talk to a very little extent, or just not worry about the entry at all and then just set the next deadline...or something like that. The only problem with that though is I'm still kind of opening myself up to either of the two, earlier mentioned scenarios. After all, I'm still giving myself deadlines on one-hand, and still a lot of flexibility on the other. I guess when it comes down to it, you can't really have a balance for something like a blog....it all kind of depends on the individual effort.

So I dunno, I guess the main reason why I'm making this update today is that I just wanted to give you guys an update on what's going on in this front, or rather, what isn't going on. I'm still trying to modify my plans for the blog and trying to figure out how I want to go about working on this. Because that's something else.....despite what it seems, I do want to use this blog in some way, and I don't just want to mark it as a failure and move on from it. I would like to use this again....I just need to figure out how I should go about doing that.

During the summer, I will try to get a few updates out there. E3 is coming up, and since Mario Party 8 is almost over, I'll need a place to discuss the event and all of the stuff Nintendo is coming out with, so you can definitely expect an update on that front. Not only that, but I do have a lot of big projects coming soon as well on my Youtube channel, so you can expect some inside information there as well. But for now, I'll try to aim for an entry before the end of May. I think that sounds like a fair, and make-able deal.

Otherwise, I think that's all I really wanted to say. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you guys later!

-SlimKirby.

3/18/11 - And The Kirbys Go Marching In!

2011-03-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

GASP!

And almost two months later, you hear from me again!

Wow, it's been awhile since I've made an update on here, hasn't it? I honestly didn't even realize how long this wait has been until MadameWario made her most recent blog entry, and that's when I realized, "Hmmmm, that's right, I have a blog too." All in all, it's not a big deal though I guess. After all, in my last entry, I even said that I would only be updating with unscheduled, informal entries from now on, just so whenever I did write, I wouldn't feel pressured to get something up by a deadline and that way I could also talk about other things instead of having nothing to talk about. So instead of spending an entire paragraph apologizing (although I have already spent an entire paragraph justifying my absence X_X), let's get right into it.

Currently I am in my 8th/9th week of my 8th semester of college, and so far, it's actually been going pretty well. I actually feel like I'm doing well in my classes, and for the first time in the last 4 years, I'm actually happy with how things are going at my university. I still don't want to be here, but at least I'm not depressed while not wanting to be here. =P The way things are going now, I will still have another year to spend here (1/2 the year on campus, the other 1/2 commuting because I'll only have 2 or 3 classes), which does kind of suck because I'll be a 5-year graduate instead of a 4-year, but for a college student, and one that has changed his major twice, that's actually pretty good. Just have to keep my grades up and stay on this high, and I'll have that bachelor's degree in no time! =P

In the gaming world, I can't really say too much at this point, but the release of the Nintendo 3DS is just around the corner! To be quite honest, I actually didn't pre-order the handheld, and will be testing my stupid luck to see if I can maybe pick it up at launch (or a few weeks after launch). I know I am probably not being smart about this purchase, especially considering how epic the Nintendo Wii launch was, but I don't know......the part of my state where I live (technically both parts...my home and college), just doesn't embrace video games as much as the rest of the world, and generally, I have very little issue getting anything on launch date anyway. Not only that, I'm not really even sure I want the 3DS on launch just because there aren't any big games just yet. The only launch game I'm even remotely excited about is Pilotwings Resort, and even then, I don't expect that game to hold me over for THAT long. I might wait until some other big name games come out first, but I guess even then, it's still too early to tell. I will say though, for once, money is not and will never be an issue for me and games anymore....although that's a story for another day....or never. >=)

I did pick up Pokemon Black though and have been spending a great deal of time with it. So far, it's actually a pretty sweet game. It's given me frustrations, but it's also given me some good times as well. It definitely has its own charm despite not changing too much in Pokemon formula, which I do give it a lot of credit for. A lot of people I know criticize the game for not being very different from its predecessors, and make it seem like every new game is just a dump of 100+ more Pokemon, but really, you can't blame Pokemon too much for that. It just seems to have a case of the "Simpsons Did It" curse, where eventually it just gets to the point where they are digging way too deep for ideas and usually end either up going in a very weird direction, or just end up slightly re-factoring an idea that's already been done. It doesn't mean it's bad or anything, rather originality is just a little harder to come by, and sometimes when it is, it's a rather strange originality. One thing I can definitely give this generation props for is the story, because the story is rather unique in it's own way, especially when compared to the other generations. But yeah, that's my take so far on Pokemon B/W.

As for other games, I can honestly say that I haven't really been playing much besides that. If anything, I've been trying to go back through older games, mainly for nostalgia, and also I've been trying to think of some future LP ideas as well. I recently finished completing my Virtual Console copy of Mario Party 2, unlocking every mini-game and beating the dreaded Mini-Game Coaster on all 3 difficulty levels.....which was a challenge, to say the least....mainly due to controls actually. I've also been trying to finish up a Hard Mode playthrough of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, which I kind of stopped just because it got to the point of somewhat tedium. Not because of it being difficult or anything. It's just that the chapters take a lot longer and they are already pretty long chapters. Also I am a very bad multi-tasker, which is relevant because I for some reason kept trying to do other things whenever I would play the game. X_X

And I guess with that, I can start getting into Youtube stuff. Well, since I last left you guys, I finished up New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and started a new project, "Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon," which has generally been getting a really positive reception from people. In fact, at the top of my head, I honestly can't think of any negative feedback on the game thus far, which I guess is a good sign. I should also be starting Mario Party 8 very soon and I have a lot of big ideas for the future (moreso than I did 2 months ago), so yeah, things are going pretty well. I'm also about to hit 40,000 subscribers as well, so thanks to all of you for making that possible! =) I don't have much to report from CrystalStarStudio or The Blargg Pit at this time, but keep your eyes peeled as I'm sure we will have a lot of interesting stuff coming up soon!

Anyways, I think that's about all I need to report on, so I'll talk to you guys later! Hope you guys had a great Spring Break for those who had it already, and if you haven't, hope you have a good one when it comes up. Not sure how long the wait for the next entry will be, but I'll try to make it sooner than the last one (no promises though).

Later folks!

1/20/11 - Let's Just Take it Slow...

2011-01-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, SlimKirby here!

It's been awhile hasn't it? Almost 3 weeks in fact, but nonetheless, here I am for another blog entry, and for what is technically my 100th entry. Last time, I got a little deep about the future of this blog and if there was any possibility of me continuing it after some pretty major doubts. I have been doing a lot of thinking, like I said I would, and I'm still just honestly not sure about the direction of where to take this. So I decided that for the time being, I just wouldn't worry about it and focus on doing informal, unplanned entries for awhile, because honestly, isn't that what a blog should be about? Well, in my opinion it should be, so that's what I'm going to do. Who knows, this may actually allow me more time to think about where I want to take this and get me excited about updating again! So yeah, basically, just don't expect an entry every week, and I'll do my part in trying to get something out every now and then. Also, don't be surprised if some of my entries end up being progress reports for my channel, because while some of you probably get enough of that on my channel as it is, that's really the biggest thing going on in my life at this point, which will seem kind of sad to some of you, but when you look at my fanbase, and the benefits I'm getting.....it's a lot more important than you would think. But anyway, enough rambling, that is going to be the plan.

So what has happened since I'm gone? Well....I had a really great Holiday season, as I think I mentioned during my last entry, but I'm going to put emphasis on that again just because it really was a great Holiday, definitely the greatest one I've had for awhile. I got to see a lot of family and friends (mostly family because most of my friends decided to pull a little vanishing act on me...jerks), I got a lot of new gifts and games, and just had a very good time in general. And also (and I'm sure several people are going to freak out about this), I even got to meet MadameWario face-to-face for the first time! And yes, she's just as fierce and pimptastic as she is in real life. =P So yeah, it was a really good break......and it's kind of a shame that it's over already. =(

But yes, I am once again back in school again for my 8th (and unfortunately, not final) semester of college classes! This semester might actually end up being a little easier than my last two, just because of the nature of some of my professors, which I guess is a good thing, but it still might be a bit too early to tell. All of my classes are pretty much morning classes, which gives me a lot of time to goof off in the afternoon and still get some work done on assignments or video projects if I need to. I have an 8 AM class (which may not seem bad to high school students, but trust me, 8 AM is like the equivalent of 5 AM for college students), followed by a two hour block of two classes from 10 - 12 on 3 of the 5 days of the week....something I'm still trying to get used to, but I'm sure I will in the coming weeks. To me, college has always been pretty formulaic, in that once you get a routine going, as long as you stick to that routine, you are pretty much setting yourself up for success every time. The earlier you learn that, the better off you will be.

This Christmas, along with my brand new laptop which I bragged about a few entries ago, I did get quite a few different games, consisting of Samurai Warriors 3, Goldeneye 007 (Wii), Epic Mickey, Zelda: Four Swords Adventure, Advance Wars Dual Strike and Days of Ruin, and a few games on Virtual Console (some of which were actually gifts from other Youtube users and LPers! ;)) I really only got the first 3 as gifts, as the other ones were actually GameStop purchases, but I technically used a lot of the money I got for the Holiday on those games regardless. I haven't touched very many of these games yet (just not have had the time, plus when I have, I've been way too obsessed with Samurai Warriors 3 to play anything else), but I'm sure I'll get them played and I'm sure I will talk about them as well.

I also had my all-day stream of Kirby games about 2 1/2 weeks ago, which for the most part went pretty well, aside from UStream failing on me in a number of different ways (the biggest being destroying most of my recordings of the stream X_X). I guess the biggest thing I can take from the stream event is the realization that I need to plan streams better in the sense of being prepared for the games I'm doing and not biting off more than I can chew, and also that UStream is not an efficient website for streaming. Live and Learn I guess......

As far as Youtube stuff is concerned, I guess things are going well. I'm still not completely ready to start recording with my new set-up, so I've been spending the last few weeks on recordings I've been able to get done while I was at home. Kirby's Dream Course finished up last week, and thank God am I relieved. Again, it's not that I hated the project..it was just a lot more difficult than I thought it would be (and I already knew it was a pretty difficult game). I probably should have done the playthrough on an emulator, because in the way I handled it, I spent more time overall on failed attempts than I did successful attempts, and that didn't really help me one bit. Mario Party 7 is starting to wrap up, and at this point I have all of the videos recorded, so it's not like there is anything major preventing me from finishing up that project. I just want to drag it on (although that's putting that in such a negative way) for a little bit so I don't finish that too quickly and then as a result, also finish Mario Bros. Wii too quickly. I technically know what my next project is going to be at this point, so it's not like I have no idea of what to do afterwards, or anything like that, but this is definitely the most tapped out I've been on ideas, so I am definitely trying to keep an easy flow going as I try to come up with some other ideas. And lastly, there is New Super Mario Bros. Wii, perhaps the project I am the most satisfied with at this point. I'm actually moving through the game a lot faster than I expected to, even with the larger time limit, and for the most part, I think it has been moving along pretty well, and going along well with my audiences. I think it was definitely a great project to start the year with (even though it did start in the 2nd half of December). That project should finish up sometime in February.

Also in other Youtube-related news, things have started up again on CrystalStarStudio with 2 new projects, a 3rd on the way, the concluding videos of TTYD, and then some other great stuff to follow suit. The project I am involved in still won't be starting for a few weeks (still trying to work out all of kinks), but it will be here eventually.

There has been a lot going on recently, and there is so much else I could discuss as well, but I know you guys can only listen to me ramble on for so long, so I think I'm going to try and end it here. So yeah, this is how you can expect the blog to be from now on; all updates will be informal and independent of a common format, and they will all be unscheduled and unplanned (I will try to announce on twitter and/or my channel page when I do have an entry though, so don't worry about checking here all the time). And basically, yeah, that's how you can expect things from now on, or at least for a little while. I may decide to get back on a common format and schedule eventually, but for now, it's not something I will worry about.

I guess that's about it. I will talk to you guys later and see you around Youtube! Take it easy! Later folks!

- SlimKirby

Where in the World is SlimKirby?

2011-01-03T19:10:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, SlimKirby here with a short message.

As you may have noticed, I haven't been doing very much updating as of late. Last you heard from me was the weekend before Christmas, and it's already a few days into the new year, so first off, I hope you guys have had a wonderful holiday season and happy new year celebration like I did! =)

Now, getting on to the main point of this entry; my lack of updating on this front.

Some of you have probably already realized the reason for my lack of updating (or for those who don't like this justification, my excuse for not updating) stems from the fact that I have been pretty busy as of late keeping up with family, friends, and all of that other general holiday stuff. And for the most part, that is true, but I can't honestly say that is the only reason.

I'm not sure how evident it has been in recent entries, but I've just been getting a bit tired of doing a new entry for this blog every week. It's slowly starting to become more of a chore than an activity I like doing (which is how it started), and if it is becoming THAT much of a burden, I really don't think I should do it anymore, or as often. I've always been under the belief that negative feelings of an activity often contribute to poor performance on that particular activity, and I don't really think my blog, or my readers deserve a half-baked entry every week of me saying, "Oh god this week was busy" and "ZOMG! ZOMG! YOUTUBE PROJECTS!" I honestly just don't have that much to talk about, and when I do, I take care of it in my videos or through other media. The only reason I kept with the blog for so long was when I was doing my daily updates back during my Let's Play of The Simpsons: Hit and Run, I legitimately enjoyed doing it, which is why I updated every day. After a few weeks of that, I felt burnt out again, so I switched to weekly updates, and not even 1/2 of a year through that, I was already starting to update late and sometimes just not at all. I'm not sure if this means I should switch to every 2 or 3 weeks, or even monthly updates, but it honestly feels like no matter what, even that would be shortly lived.

Now, don't get me wrong, I do like keeping the blog and if I can make it work, I will definitely do everything I can to keep it moving, but at this point, it feels like I'm more forced to write it rather than just doing it myself, which is not what a blog should feel like. So yeah, that is the dilemma, and where I go from here....I'm not exactly sure.

So here's the deal, I'm going to give myself a few more days (or weeks) to think about everything, and I'll see if I can maybe figure something out. If I determine that the blog might be something worth keeping, then I'll try my best to keep it going at my own pace (but it will not be a weekly pace, I assure you (unless that is what will work best, but eh...whatever)). If not, I'll probably wait til the very least, my 100th entry (this is technically entry #99, but I won't count this as part of the count) and then close it up for a little while until I feel like brining it back again.

Thanks for understanding guys, if you did. If not, oh well, I can't please everyone. Thank you for your time, and I will talk to you guys later.

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

12/20/10 - One Break to Rule Them All!

2010-12-20T20:53:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another blog entry!

First off, big apologies for not being able to update last week, but I really needed that time to study for finals. And then I also missed my update yesterday just because I had some other things going on. However, I did find some time to update tonight, so I figured I would, even if it will probably end up being a small one.

So I am finally on my Winter Break, and my god am I thrilled to be. That last semester of mine seriously never wanted to end. But thankfully I can look past it now and try to regroup. As for my grades, I don't expect very much or really any high marks, but I have a pretty solid cumulative GPA right now, and if I just get my act together, the blunders I made this semester shouldn't impact it very much.

Also some recent things to note, I have officially ordered my new laptop and should be getting it sometime after Christmas. For the time being I can manage recording on my "stay-at-home" desktop, but soon I should be back in action in terms of where I was a month and a half ago. But anyway, I'm going to be getting an HP Core i7 (which was quite pricey...but I didn't have any major requests for Christmas, which kind of justifies it (plus this is something I actually need)), and I am very much looking forward to getting it. =D

Besides that though, I don't have too much to report. I've basically been trying to take it easy these last few days before things start getting crazy with the activity and family get-togethers. Christmas is that time of year after all! =P

Anyways, moving on to Youtube stuff.....hooray for being completely back in action! Not only did I resume progress in both Kirby's Dream Course and Mario Party 7, I also added a new project to my list, that game being New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a game that I have actually done an online project for, but just not on Youtube. It feels good to be back in the swing of things, but let's hope that the "3 PROJECTS" don't hold me down too much. =P

Ok, so first off, for the first time in a month and a half, I can talk about Mario Party! The board I did this weekend was Neon Heights, a board, as I mentioned, that is far from my favorite, just because of the luck-based nature. Yeah, it seems kind of contradictory to hate on a board for something like that because so much of the game is luck-based already, but the board mechanic just adds that much more to it. I mean, from the beginning of the playthrough, I think that was pretty evident by the fact that I had such a hard time getting a star at first despite having quite a bit of coins, and the computer players seemed to get to them no problem. This is especially made true by the fact that the star is technically only worth 10 coins, and even if you get the wrong chest, you still have a 1 in 2 chance of getting those coins back with an additional 10 on top of it, and if not, well, that bob-omb just ends up screwing things up too. =P But nonetheless, I stayed pretty much at the top in terms of coin count, and that ended up working quite well for me. And it also helped that I was a demon when it came to the mini-games. >=D And I know I made such a big deal out of it, but man, I was glad that the bonus stars couldn't decide the outcome, because it was kind of lame how the 3 bonus stars I would have won weren't even up as options and the fact that Daisy got the 3 that were offered. If I didn't have more coins than she, I would have been in trouble. =P But in the end, I got a rightfully deserved victory, and I guess that is all that matters. Oh and lol @ Magmagical Journey happening in the same turn right after one another.

As for Kirby's Dream Course, things are going ok I guess. At this point I have more than half of the project recorded and I should be done before break...or at least that is the hope. If not, I'll be finishing just as I return back to college. Despite some criticisms on the commentary (or rather the idea that people can't understand that my voice has a natural monotone to it that I can't control), I'd say the project is going along well.

And yesterday, or technically today because it was updated at midnight..... although yesterday might be more appropriate since this blog probably won't be read til after this coming midnight......bah, technicalities.....the point is, I started New Super Mario Bros. Wii in my last video! I will admit, at first I was kind of unsure about the game as I was filming the episodes, but after I got done and started putting them together.....I dunno, it started to grow on me a little bit, and this should be a pretty fun project. Although the one thing I will say...never announce in a Let's Play how familiar you are with a game...the commenters will go after you on every little thing. I think one of the things I said in the first video was, "I know this game decently well," (which I think is true), but everyone interpreted that as, "I KNOW EVERYTHINGZ, I R MASTER, GIVE ME MONEYZ!" and everytime I said the slightest thing wrong, or missed something, it's almost like I violated one of the 10 Commandments. I mean, the people that do that are stupid, so it shouldn't bother me, and don't get me wrong, the idiotic comments don't bother me at all....but I am seriously concerned with the intelligence of most Youtube users. I really hate saying that, but come on, is it really that hard to use your brain or common sense to such a small degree? Is it? I guess not.....

Anyways, that is what is new in Youtube for me, so I hope you guys enjoy all the projects I have for you throughout this Winter Break, and hopefully you guys will be able to see nothing but daily updates from me from now on! =)

Once again, while I have finished Donkey Kong Country Returns at this point, I still don't feel comfortable enough talking about it, so once again I am putting that review on hold. And because of that, I think that about does it for this entry! Thanks for joining me this week and I'll see you next week for more bloggish excitement....unless I decide not to update due to Christmas and my 22nd Birthday! =)

Later Folks!
-SlimKirby

12/5/10 - A Decemberish Update Type of Entry

2010-12-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another weekly blog entry. The month of December has finally began and the first snows of the season have already been upon us, or at least for me anyways. Not only that, but at this point I only have about 10 days left here at my university for my fall semester, so I am really looking forward to being done with the freaking semester that has tried so hard to get the best of me. Oh well, it’s almost over now and I can seriously see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just have to get past this difficult week and then make it through a week of finals, and then I’m done. Anyways, let’s get to talks about stuffs.

First off, I will say that I do have my laptop back now. Unfortunately, the changes made to it to get it to work got rid of any ability or capability for the machine to record anything, so I can no longer make videos at this time. However, this does not mean I’m necessarily “out of commission” until I get a new one. I still have videos ready for this coming week and then unfortunately I will have to take another small break (for just a week) when I won’t have any videos at all, but after that week I should have the capability to record again before I actually get my new laptop. I’ll basically be recording in the same fashion that I recorded my first Kirby’s Dream Course videos, but this time I’ll actually have a TV screen to look at while I’m playing and not just the stupid Windows Movie Maker window, which I refuse to use to play Mario Party 7 and my next playthrough.

Speaking of Youtube stuff…..HOORAY FOR UPDATES THIS WEEK! I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but it actually felt good to make updates again. Of course they weren’t daily updates or anything like that, but still, it felt like that small part of my life that vanished for a few weeks had finally returned to me. I only hope the return was enough of an impact for the viewing public, which from the reception, I’d say it was at least good enough.

So let’s get started talking about Kirby’s Dream Course. This was a game that I really wanted to do for awhile, and for the longest time I was juggling my thoughts together about whether or not I wanted to do this game or either Super Bomberman 3 or The Adventures of Lolo 3. Of the three games, I knew this game was going to be the biggest challenge because Super Bomberman 3 is actually pretty damn easy, and Lolo 3, despite how challenging the series actually is, I think for a Let’s Play it actually is a pretty sensible choice and a game that’s relatively easy to handle. All you need to do is just record yourself playing through, cut out footage if you really need to, and WHAM, you have yourself a video. Kirby’s Dream Course, while really anti-climatic for a casual Let’s Play, if you want to do an all-gold medal playthrough like I am doing, you’re going to be in for quite a storm if you aren’t an expert player. I am of course not an expert player, but I think I’m good enough to at least handle the expert-leveled challenge that the game offers. I knew from the beginning that I would 1) have to play the courses multiple times, 2) make plenty of footage cuts until I got everything right, and 3) practice and do my research on game mechanics to get the best performance possible. Since I am not working with an emulator on this Let’s Play, save states were out of the question and I’d have to get the gold medals based on personal skill alone. I actually almost considered making the move to an emulator during the final weeks leading up to this Let’s Play, but then my computer went “kah-put” (or however you spell that) and forced me to use my Virtual Console copy instead. In the end though, I don’t think game was a bad choice, I just knew that I was going to be in for a lot.

The first recordings of this game were actually pretty “interesting,” and I’m not sure if I mean in a good way or a bad way. I wouldn’t say they were “catastrophic,” necessarily, but they were pretty far from easy-going…that’s for sure. The first recording, I really didn’t mind how that turned out just because it was the first video, and no first video is truly that perfect. I just figured I would cover the basics, do what I could to get a good score, and if I didn’t succeed, I could easily just try again and knock it out of the park, which is pretty much how that worked. The 2nd video/course was a little more strenuous, just because of that stupid recording glitch which caused me to redo that entire course. The 3rd was ok, but I had to replay that so many times due to small, stupid mistakes that I really shouldn’t have made. The following 3 videos, which I also recorded at around the same time, and which will also be released on my channel this coming week, were pretty much the same story. I got them done, but they could have been smoother for me. I’m really hoping the recording set-up that I’ll be using when I return home will be so much more beneficial for me, because it seems like my timing is just a bit off when I was playing the game for my finished videos. Oh well, I guess it’s just something we will have to wait and see what happens. For now though, I hope you guys enjoy.

As for Mario Party 7, I feel so bad that I haven’t been able to update this project, just because the first half of the Party Mode playthrough went pretty well for me. I did have that stupid loss at Pyramid Park, but even that went well considering. It really sucks that I had to put this on such a long hiatus, especially since at this point I actually would have been finished with Party Mode by now. Looks like the extra videos and even Party Mode itself will be going on til the first weeks of 2011.

As I briefly mentioned earlier in the blog, I actually had another playthrough planned for the month of December. However, due to how cruel nature can be to a Kirby with sunglasses, that project is also going to be significantly delayed quite a bit. At this point I was honestly hoping to have started the project as I finished Mario Party 7 and as I was closing out Dream Course, but now it looks I’ll be smack dab in the middle of both at this project’s beginning. It really, really does suck, I will admit, but that’s the price you pay when you go about 3 weeks of no updating, 2 weeks of light updating, and then another week of no activity. Again, just for emphasis, it sucks, but you really can’t control these things. In a perfect world, my Computer Tech people would be geniuses that could fix any problem simply by touching the screen, instead of taking it apart and having it at the mercy of their cold-hearted souls. In the end though, I still plan to release this project, whatever it is, around the week of Christmas, so I hope you guys enjoy it when that time comes (and yes, once again, keeping the project in the dark. ;)).

I could talk about a few other things, like CSS or the Kirby’s Stream Land stream I talked about during my 20,000 Subscriber special, but honestly, these are things that I just can’t address at this time because there is honestly just too much going on and the future is just uncertain. I’ll try to keep you guys updated as much as possible.

Also, this is going to be a short entry just because I’m really, really, really busy at this time. Plus I haven’t exactly made any progress on Donkey Kong Country Returns so I’m not ready to talk more about that yet. So without further adieu, I’m going to close the blog entry up here and talk to you guys next week! See you then!

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

11/28/10 - SlimKirby: Returns!

2010-11-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

Hello everbody, SlimKirby here!

The title is no lie, SlimKirby has definitely returned, but in more ways than one (and not just because I got Donkey Kong Country: Returns =P). For one, it is time for another exciting blog entry, and two, as of tomorrow, I should be returning to the Youtube scene after 3 long weeks of not updating. Will this return set the wheels back in motion, will my laptop be back in action, will SlimKirby still be able to lead the Germans to victory on that Civilization II file I keep talking about? The answers to these questions will be answered….shortly.

First up, the laptop situation should finally be done with after tomorrow (the key-word is “should.”). I talked to the computer people on Wednesday and they’ve told me that there is nothing they can do about getting my laptop back up to the way it was before I started having problems, so they are going to do something else. Basically, what they are going to do instead is install a thing called Virtual Box onto my laptop. With this, I will be able to control a Mac OS and Windows OS simultaneously besides just one or the other. Of course I’ll lose some functionality this way, but it’s the only thing they believe they can do about this for now. Installing Windows via Boot Camp is impossible with the way my laptop currently is, which again is very strange because they actually say my computer is mechanically fine. Anyways, in the long run, just having the Windows OS would solve a majority of my problems, so I’m taking this as a victory for the time being. Of course, I’m not really sure what this means for my videos as far as this laptop is concerned. The thing is, my capture card only works on the Windows OS and is completely unrecognized when I plug it in whenever I’m on the Mac side. I’m not sure if Virtual Box will affect the device, but there is always that possibility. I guess the only thing I can really do is test it once I get my computer back, whether it’s tomorrow or Tuesday, or whenever the hell it will be X_X.

Now you are probably wondering….with this uncertainty still at play, how exactly will I be making my return tomorrow? Well, let’s just say that during this Thanksgiving Break, I did find a little bit of time to get some recording done on my desktop at home. Of course, my desktop set-up isn’t exactly the best set-up to use for the type of prolific work I do. For one, it’s just a really small space and not a very comfortable place to do recording. And second of all, there is no TV, so I have to use the small Windows Movie Maker preview window…something I haven’t done since Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance back in 2009. It’s not a terrible thing to use, but it sometimes hinders precise gameplay, just because you are playing a console video game through a computer program while it’s trying to record it. However, I think I got it to work fine for what I could do with it, and was able to pump out 6 videos from my recording sessions (even though they took a long time). The way I figure it, I will be uploading these videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next two weeks. That way, I can figure out what I can (and need to) do when I get my laptop back, if I can do anything, and even if I can’t, I’m at least covered for two weeks.

So yeah, that is the activity you can expect on my channel for the next two weeks. I know 3/7 (6/14) doesn’t seem like much (it could be more if everything works out ok), but it’s better than the 0/21 record I’ve had for the past 3 weeks. In the meantime, CrystalStarStudio is also back in the swing of things (FINALLY), so you will have something to watch there for the next two weeks as well. Of course we only have TTYD extras for you, but soon we will have a winter line of projects ready for you guys as well. It’s a relief to know that finally CSS is back on the move. I know the wait has been rather long and ridiculous, but it honestly isn’t something we could’ve handled at the time. In fact, I’m actually still a little unsure about a few things, but I’m not going to get into those now.

As for other Youtube stuff, I really just don’t know right now. As I said before, a lot of it just depends on how the whole laptop situation goes. I hope it goes well enough so I can continue Mario Party 7 this coming weekend, but again, it’s just too early to tell. I also have another big project planned on the horizon as well. I would like to start that one on the 13th of December, but it may not happen until the 20th. School and education has quite a lot to do with things as well, and I am reaching that point where final projects and exams are quickly approaching. I guess the only thing I can really say right now is just stay tuned to my twitter updates and recent activity feeds for information pertaining to Youtube stuff.

So now that I got that covered, I guess I could talk about a few things that have been going on in my real life. After all, there was an American holiday we just had! =O My Thanksgiving (and TG Break) actually went pretty well. It didn’t last me as long as I would have liked, but then again, all breaks are like that. =P Anyways, I guess I’ll just cover some of the main highlights;

1). On Tuesday on my way home, I actually got the pleasure of picking up Donkey Kong Country Returns, a game I have been very excited about ever since it was first revealed at E3 2010. It was my “Best in Show” choice for the Wii (even over Epic Yarn), and after playing through most of the game thus far, I have to say that this game could possibly be Game of the Year for Wii as well. So far, the game is just incredible, and I can honestly say there hasn’t been a single part of it that I haven’t enjoyed. There are quite a few bits of frustration though, I will admit, but I’ve always been fond of a little challenge here and there. This game is seriously one of the most difficult games I have ever played, in the entire DKC series, of all Wii games, and may even be a candidate for of all-time. Unlike other games I have played this year, I’m not just breezing through it either. This game actually feels like there is some good length to it. And also like traditional DKC games, there are a lot of collectables and hidden stuff, so even after you finish the game, you’re probably not finished yet. ;) =P Anyways, I didn’t want to get too in depth with this game just yet. I will probably have a Game Discussion/review (whatever you want to call it) of the game soon in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for that. For now though, if you love platformers and if you were in love with the DKC series as much as I was back in the day, definitely give this game your consideration.

2). Thanksgiving itself was a pretty good day. I got to see some of my family (some of which I hadn’t seen in a few months), so that was nice. I spent most of the day feeling pretty tired (a certain girl wearing yellow and purple was doing her job of trying to keep me up as late as she could again =P), but that didn’t really ruin my day any. After the festivities started to wind down, I got to play some Rock Band with my cousins, aunt, and even my mom (my mom is surprisingly a good singer….by Rock Band standards =P), so that was a lot of fun, and perhaps the highlight of my day. Man though, after almost a year of not playing those games, I still remember when I used to be so addicted to them and Guitar Hero. To think if I never started Let’s Playing, I probably would have ended up being a Guitar Hero/Rock Band guy XD. Oh well, I think I chose the right crowd. =P

3). The last and final highlight of my break was that I got to see some of my best friends on Friday night. However, this gathering was not just a friendly, “let’s get caught up” type of visit. Since the end of October, me, and 3 of my best friends, have been trying to start a little Pokemon tournament of sorts (between ourselves). Basically, we replay our old R/B/Y games, and using the team we create in our games, we will use those teams and do battle with each other at a future date and time. All 4 of us have been Pokemon-a-holics for as long as we can remember (in fact, we even call ourselves “The Elite Four” =P), and this competition is kind of a way for us to go back to those times and try to relive those moments and memories. Although, I guess “relive” isn’t exactly the way to go about defining it. It’s moreso “re-nostalgializing” (if that’s even a word) with something near and dear to our childhood. Anyways, on Friday we got started with our new games and we’re all en route to our own individual paths of becoming Pokemon Masters! =P So yeah, this should be a lot of fun! And for those of you wondering (since I don’t think those guys keep up with my Twitter…. not like it really matters either), but I chose Charmander, and I currently have my first badge on my game. As for potential team members, I have a few Pokemon in mind, but I’m going to see how my game plays out first before I choose a finalized version. =P

So yeah, that is what has been going on for me as of late. I’m anxiously awaiting the end of this semester, but to do that I have to get through 3 more weeks of hard work (work I’m honestly not that excited about). However, once that work is finished, HUZZAH! I guess that’s a good word to explain it! =P

Anyways, since I kind of talked a little about DKCR already, I’m not going to bother with any additional game discussion, so I think that means it’s about time for me to wrap things up for this week. I hope you guys enjoy the line of videos I have planned for the next two weeks, and hopefully I can get back into the full swing of things (Youtube wise) very, very soon. I know that most of you are and will continue to be patient with me, but a part of me really misses making videos and updating. =( I’m not trying to overwork myself or anything, but I do get a lot of enjoyment out of it, just like I hope you guys get a lot of enjoyment out of watching my videos. But alas, kind of blabbering on for longer than I need to. =P

I’ll talk to you guys next week for another exciting blog entry! Catch you guys then! Later folks!
-SlimKirby

11/21/10 - I'm Not Thankful for Long Laptop Examinations

2010-11-21T19:46:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, ready for another blog entry!

Last week, things really weren’t going that well for me, and to be perfectly honest, they still really aren’t. Since I’m already talking about it, I guess that will be the first thing I discuss.

If you couldn’t figure it out yet, that’s right, I still do not have my laptop back. At this time I am actually writing this entry using a loaner laptop from my university’s computer care place. Now, I know what you guys are thinking; “But SlimKirby, I thought you said last week that you should have everything solved by the start or middle of this week?” Well, it turns out that I was dead wrong, because at the end of the week, nothing has really been solved yet. For those of you wondering “How?” or “Why?” or “What in the hell is actually going on?” I’m honestly looking for the answers to those questions as well, because nobody seems to really know what the heck is going on with my laptop.

I’m not going to talk about the problem again, or rather, how the problem started, so if you are just joining the blog scene this week, I explain the problem to the full extent in the last entry, so you may want to look at that if you have no idea what I’m talking about. Anyway, on Monday morning I took my laptop in for the university computer experts to examine, and right off the bat I got some pretty bad news. The person at the desk said my hard-drive was most definitely failing on the Windows side, but not only that, the failure had already started going towards the Mac side as well. This of course put me in a very uneasy mood from the very beginning, but they did tell me that they were going to do anything they could to make sure that I had the machine back in the evening. So later that day, 30 minutes before the place was supposed to close, I went back and checked in with the computer peeps just to see how things were progressing. They did tell me that they were still running some diagnostic tests, and that they wouldn’t be done until the next day, so I was like, “Ok, but for the meantime, can I at least get a laptop to borrow until this problem is solved?” and they allowed me to use a loaner until Wednesday. This way, I figured I could at least use the computer until Wednesday, so if they didn’t call me on Tuesday, I wouldn’t have to worry about going back to check in again and give them ample time to finish whatever the heck they were doing.

Fast-forward to Wednesday afternoon! I did end up receiving a phone call that day, but because I had an all-nighter the night before working on a big homework assignment, I was not in a very perceptive mood when I got the call (in fact, at that point I was napping trying to get some energy after that night). The lady could have asked “Will you join me in a hostile takeover of America?” and I would have been like “Yeah…no…whatever, bye,” immediately zonking off back to sleep right after. So I went back later that day and got a pretty good status update, considering. They said they were still running diagnostics, but they at least gave me a little more confidence that the problem would get solved. Not only that, but they also extended my loaner laptop until after Thanksgiving Break, just in case the problem didn’t get solved. They also gave me a number I could call to check in every now and then if I wanted an update on the status. So overall, while they essentially accomplished nothing over the last two days, I was a lot less worried than I was on Monday, and they convinced that they were at least doing something to fix the problem and not just hitting the machine over and over again with a hammer.

Now we are fast-forwarding to Friday! I didn’t check in on Thursday, because like Tuesday, I wanted to make sure that I gave them a little more time to work on things so I wasn’t just breathing down their necks the whole time. So I called them on Friday at around noon, and sure enough, the same lady who gave me such a worry on Monday picked up and was all like, “You’re laptop is not happy! We tried this and this and this, and it’s failed 3 times! You are a horrible person for even installing Windows on a Macbook because Apple bribes us with money to say these things!” Ok, so she didn’t actually say the last thing, but that’s seriously what I feel like whenever she is the one talking to me. She basically gave me a “We don’t know what’s wrong or what’s going on, so we’re running even more tests, but if you would like a better update, you can call back in an hour when our expert isn’t eating lunch,” type of update. So I called back one hour later, and thankfully I got to talk to someone who wasn’t that peach (I use the word “peach” now, instead of the actual b-word, because Princess Peach is a b-word! =D). They essentially told me the same thing, but they promised me that they were not going to give up on me and asked for my patience over the long weekend. I liked the person who I was talking to, so I decided to comply and be nice about it. They had been working on it for an entire week, among many other laptops as well, so even if they do work for a satanic company like Apple, they had been putting a lot of work specifically into my machine, so I had to give them a little credit.

So here I am, one week after I originally had the problem, still not really sure what the problem even is. I still can’t record, I still can’t do any of my homework that involves programming unless I go to a computer lab, and I still can’t continue to dominate the randomly-generated world of my most recent Civilization II file. It sucks, but those are the cards I have been dealt with for this week, and unfortunately I might have to hold on to these cards for a few more weeks as well, if the problem continues. I have definitely decided that when I’m home over break, I am going to start talking to my parents about getting another laptop because I’ve had it with the problems of this one. As I said before, it’s a great laptop, but it just has too many problems that I shouldn’t be dealing with, and doesn’t provide me with the necessities that I need for a laptop. Plus, it has the whole hard-drive space issue I think I mentioned in the last entry. It would be so much easier if I had a desktop computer, but I couldn’t exactly make much use of that either, considering I’m still living in dormitory residence halls. Maybe after this year when I start doing commutes….

So besides that though, things have been going all right I suppose. Last Friday we actually had a LAN Party at my dorm, and at this party they had a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament and a Mario Kart 64 tournament (amongst other tournaments as well, but none of which worth mentioning as far as my game library is concerned). I did enter both tournaments and was actually satisfied with my Super Smash Bros. Brawl placement. I got seventh place out of 32, and had every possibility of advancing further than that considering my two losses (double elimination) were extremely close matches that came down to one lucky strike. Oh well, I guess I will just have to own them all next time. ;) For those of you wondering, I used my main man Diddy Kong in the tournament as a tribute to my most recently completed Let’s Play. =P As for the Mario Kart 64 tournament, I don’t even want to talk about that because that was the most disorganized piece of garbage of a tournament I’ve ever seen. I’m not going to go into details, but tell me if this makes sense; 1) All of the matches were 4-Player matches, 2) Each round was just one race, 3) If you aren’t first, you’re eliminated, 4) One elimination, and you’re out (single elimination). Who in their right, non-ignorant mind would make a Mario Kart tournament based on that? That’s so freaking stupid, considering quite a bit of the game is luck-based. In fact, that’s so stupid, I’m not even going to explain what would have been the right thing to do and end the paragraph here.

Another positive that came out of this party was that I also entered a raffle (I got 3 free submissions into the raffle because I attended and entered two tournaments), and actually won something. I only entered one of the three drawings because they only had a PS3 game, an Xbox360 game, and a Wii game, and since the Wii is the only system I own of those three, that was logically the only one I could get any use out of, so all 3 of my tickets went to that one drawing. And sure enough, the next morning when I woke up, I had an e-mail that said I won. I went downstairs to claim my game, and the game ended up being “No More Heroes.” Besides hearing the name of the game before, I had no idea what the game was actually about or what it consisted of, so last evening I actually sat down to play it for awhile. My first reaction, after playing 2 hours of the game, was pretty much the following: “Holy crap, that’s a lot of blood! O_O” NMH might just be the bloodiest, goriest game I’ve ever played, and I’ve played the Grand Theft Auto games. Safe to say, I was a bit surprised at what I first saw. Not to say I’m completely against blood, gore, and violence in video games, or anything like that, it’s just not what I’m normally used to. I’m more used to seeing goombas getting flattened, and octoroks vanishing after a quick swipe of a sword. Aside from that though, the game doesn’t really seem like a bad video game, but again, I’ve only played a very small portion of it. If I really feel like it, I might cover it in a future “Game Chat” discussion, but a lot of my viewers are pretty young, so in that regard, it’s probably not a good idea unless I “Viewer Discretion” the hell out of that discussion.

Aside from the LAN Party, not much has really been going on in the world of college. Classes and projects are slowly, but surely winding down. I have a nice 3-day break coming up for Thanksgiving this next week, so I’m looking forward to that, especially since I get to see and spend time with my always wonderful family. And then, before you know it, Christmas time will be upon us once again, so hooray for that! =D

Once again, I’m afraid I’m going to be kind of brief with this entry, so no game discussion this week, or Youtube discussion for that matter (not that it would matter, I haven’t exactly posted anything anyways). Hopefully I get some better news this next week with my laptop, and hopefully I can start posting videos again. If not, once again, I am very apologetic with the wait, but there is nothing I can really do about it. I hate not being able to upload just as much as you guys hate not being able to see any my uploads. I might try to figure a few alternatives out as well, but once again, there are no guarantees. I'll also try to have some game discussion up next week as well, considering there are a few games I want to talk about, plus I should have Donkey Kong Country Returns by that point as well. I'll also try to give an update on what will be happening with my Youtube stuff, whether I get my laptop back this next week or not.

I’ll talk to you guys next week for another exciting (hopefully) entry from the mind of SlimKirby!

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

11/15/10 - I Hate When Things Don't Work =(

2010-11-14T23:14:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another weekly blog entry!

I'm not sure if any of you guys have been to my channel in the last 2 days, but if you haven't, I'll go ahead and explain here. My computer started having some issues, and unfortunately, those issues are preventing me from recording any videos, working on any of my programming (and just ordinary) assignments for my school work, and perhaps the most major, preventing me from playing Civilization II! Ok, that last one is not that much of an issue, but I was in the middle of game that I was doing really well on when this happened. =(

Basically, for those who don't know, I use a Macbook laptop. Now before we start any of the Apple bashing, I want to state for the record that I dislike Apple, Mac, and pretty much anything associated with Steve Jobbs. I'm not saying they should all burn in a fire or anything like that, but as far as their hardware and their software go, I'm just not a fan. So anyways, the reason why I ended up with a Macbook was because my first major was Math Education, and all Education majors were supposed to buy a laptop. I personally never figured out why (I think it's because the portfolio software for that major and the BSU website was specific to Mac, or something like that, but even then I imagine there are ways to get through that), but either way, I was forced into purchasing a Macbook I didn't really want. =\ Like most Americans, I wanted a big computer with a lot of disk space! =3

Anyways, two years ago, after I dropped out of Math Education, I decided to partition my Macbook so it would allow the use of a Windows Operating System (that way, I could also record my videos much easier). Once I did that, everything was happy again (until I realized that I had barely any space to work with, but even then, I dealt with it), and that same laptop has been the laptop I've used for pretty much everything for these past two years. I had a few problems here and there, but they were fixed in pretty much no time. =P

Now, fast forward back to the present, last Thursday, when I turned my laptop on in the afternoon (after uploading my 20,000 subscriber special earlier that morning), for some reason, the machine just wouldn't start up. I got a little concerned and a little scared, because at that time I was planning on recording Mario Party 7 and the new project I was going to start this next week, but then I wondered if maybe I just wasn't getting it enough time to start. Before I tested that though, I decided to see if I could at least boot up the Mac operating system, and strangely enough, that started without a hitch. After that I wondered if maybe I had just gotten a random glitch or something, but sure enough, when I tried to start up Windows, it once again gave the black screen of non-loading. So yeah, at this point I was getting pretty ticked off, but figured that I could just take it to the computer repair place the next day and just deal with the Mac OS for the time being, which I did. During this time, I also tried to do some research on the problem, but couldn't really find anything. I figured though that since I was able to access the Mac OS so easily, it might've been a problem simply with the Windows side, in that case, a simple repartition would suffice (even if that meant losing all of my programs and files that I already had installed).

So the next morning I went to the computer place, but I was unfortunately unable to get my laptop looked at. The guys at the desk said that it would be better if I just came back Monday, because they didn't have any of the experts in the building, and even if I did turn it in, I probably wouldn't get it back until Monday regardless. So I decided to not turn it in yet, just so I could have it for the weekend, and maybe research the problem a little more on my own. I still came up empty-handed on the research, but oh well, at least I had a laptop.

Of course this meant that I couldn't record anything for my channel, which I was very apologetic for, although there wasn't much I could really do about it. I actually did try to get at least a Mario Party recording done though, using a very unique way of recording (which I will talk about when I play Neon Heights next weekend, or whenever I get the chance to record again). However, since there were no episodes this weekend, you can pretty much gather that the plan didn't exactly pull through the way I was expecting it to.

So yeah, at this point, I really don't know what's going to happen. I'm writing this entry late Sunday/early Monday, so I've still yet to turn the laptop in. I really hope it's nothing that major, because I honestly feel like a mess sometimes when I don't have my laptop. As pathetic as that might sound....it's the truth. I really do keep a lot of stuff on my laptop, and without it, I feel a bit lost. Not necessarily because I don't know what to do without it, but moreso because it's hard to transition from having everything in front of you, to having nothing in front of you. Oh well....I guess it's just one of those things that you have to deal with sometimes. Computers are definitely not perfect. So yeah...I guess we'll see what happens. Until then, I'll keep updates posted on my twitter account and main channel page, if you are curious on the progression. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed in a timely fashion...hopefully.

In Youtube news.....well, I don't have anything, mainly because I didn't upload anything but the final DK64 extra video. =P I did post my 20,000 subscriber video though, which went ok for being a small video with me talking a lot about stuff you may or may not care about. =P

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So yeah, I think I might actually end the entry there actually. I know it was kind of a short entry, but it pretty much explains this entire week in a nutshell for me. I'll see if I can find something gaming-related to talk about next week (Donkey Kong Country Returns is on its way after all ;) ), but for now, this has been SlimKirby! Hope you guys enjoyed this entry for what it was, and I'll see you next weekend!

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

11/7/10 - The Yarn Has Been Spun!

2010-11-08T01:56:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another week of the blog!

This entry will probably go up a bit late, but give me break. At least I’m getting it done every week. Besides, it’s not like I get paid for the blog, and it’s not like I’m off my goal of one per week or anything like that. But alas….I’m sure you guys don’t want to read sentence after sentence of me giving excuses or explaining my actions, so I’ll just move on.

We’re finally down to the last two months of the year. I can’t believe how fast time has flown. It only seems like a few days ago that I was running around a tree in Majora’s Mask and seeing glitched Donkey Kong Country platforms, but the time just seems to fly by anymore. If only the Inverted Song of Time had real life application! But on the other hand….then things would be going too slow.

Anyways, this past week has been pretty kind to me I ask. School has been hitting me pretty hard, but that’s the way it goes sometime. In my Advanced Programming class, we are working on a final six-week group project which is coming along great! I don’t feel like talking about what exactly we are doing, but perhaps that is something I can talk about in a future entry, or possibly even show it off. But yeah, I’m working with a pretty solid team. I’m not the main programmer (and I have the least experience with coding), but it’s my job to make sure everyone is on task and organized, and I usually take care of the group homework and busy work that we get on the side of the project. That’s really the only good class for me right now (and ironically the one that should be the hardest class X_X), as all my other classes seem to try and throw something stupid in my direction at random intervals of time. I’m doing everything I can though, and I guess that is what is important.

In Youtube news this week, I saw the end of a project today (technically tomorrow since I have one extra video to post), but my replay of Donkey Kong 64 is officially over. I clocked in at 55 videos (most of them lengthed at 15 minutes, the later ones at random numbers in between 15 and 20). Overall, it was a great project. I don’t consider it my best, but this has possibly been my best of the year (followed closely behind Majora and Yoshi’s Island (not that any of my other projects were bad…just not as memorable)). Which is weird….. I’ve started to notice that I do a lot of my big, well-known LPs during the Fall. Anyways, thanks for spending another gameplay session with me Donkey Kong 64! You’ve been a great game to have and play, for a Youtube project or not. =P

Mario Party 7 this week….kind of a different story. Honestly, I thought the board went fine…it was just the nature of the board that made it a mess (in the sense of my personal performance on the board). Pyramid Park was never one of my favorites, mainly because of the star mechanic. I liked the mechanic a bit more in Snowflake Lake (MP6) just because of the chain chomp locations. In Pyramid Park, 75% of them are on one side of the board and aren’t really evenly-spaced at all. My objective was to stay cautious and remain on the left side (the safe side) and only wander over when it was convenient, which was a good plan in retrospect. The only downside was that Boo had a 5 or 6 course meal on stars while I was playing it safe. I think if the computer players played more like they normally did (or should do), I think I would have won that board, no doubts about it. Once again though, it just seemed like they were all naturally working against me in every possible way from every possible angle. You saw the way they dueled everybody except Boo. =P Any way, next week is Neon Heights, a board I like a little bit more, but with a big emphasis on the word “little.”

As for other Youtube stuff, I need to start getting ready for my November 15th project as well as think of something to do for 20,000 subscribers, because that is still something I haven’t done yet. I really should just not worry about it, but I feel a bit obligated now that I mentioned it in my last update video. Meh…if it gets to be too much of a hassle, I just won’t do it, but thankfully my week shouldn’t be too hectic, so maybe I can sit down and come up with something.

Anyways, on to the game discussion!

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Game Chat:

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Yes! I promised you guys that I would give this game a final….review of sorts once I got done observing and admiring the cuteness that is this game, and that is a promise I plan to keep.

I admit, I didn’t know what to think of this game when I first saw the trailer at E3. In fact, if you have been readers and watchers since E3 2010, you would know that I had a really hard time getting past the name at first. Thankfully though, I looked past the name and at the game itself and I liked what I saw, gameplay wise. I knew that we were going to have a pretty solid game on our hands. Plus, it’s the first CONSOLE Kirby ADVENTURE since Kirby 64 (keep in mind, I said CONSOLE and ADVENTURE…not counting GBA and DS games, not counting Air Ride =P), so that alone was something to get excited about. Any way, over time, the name did start to grow on me, and now I can’t picture the game without it. So now, I officially take back everything I said about saying the game name was too weird! It’s official! Put it in writing, inform the mayor, get out all of your “I Told Ya So!” messages….whatever! I apologize for being weird about it before because I love it now (although I never really said it was bad…I just thought it was odd as a name).

Now for the actual game itself, a lot of the things people were criticizing the game about in its early stages was how drastically the game was changing from past Kirby titles. For one, Kirby no longer has his trademark copy ability or his floating around ability. Another interesting mechanic is that Kirby can’t actually die in this game. Instead of death, whenever you get hit or fall into lava or an endless abyss, you lose beads, in-level collectables used for individual level ranks (gold/silver/bronze) and currency used to purchase things from the main hub store (mostly small little trinkets and souvenirs). You can kind of compare this to some of the Wario Land games where if you got damaged, you would lose coins. Because of this mechanic, the difficulty of the general game is definitely quite easy, but if you are a perfectionist player, and someone who likes to give themselves a challenge, don’t underestimate the difficulty. And although they got rid of the copy abilities, they left in some pretty unique Kirby transformations that are shown throughout specific parts of some levels. These transformations range from a robot, to a U.F.O., to a mole, to a dolphin, and even to a fire truck. Most of these segments can be really fun….just don’t be surprised if they don’t last very long.

So as you can see, Kirby’s new, yarny form has actually changed things around quite a bit. In a bad way or in a good way….I am honestly neutral in the matter. I will admit that it did feel different at first, just because it is Kirby and I am naturally expecting to see him swallow every enemy in sight or float above them for the entire stage, but that’s not what the game developers were going for here. They were going for a unique gameplay experience and I think they succeeded at that. In fact, I think they succeeded so much that the game almost feels like a different game altogether (again, that can be seen as a positive or a negative). I mean, you still have a lot of the familiar Kirby faces and enemies, but the atmosphere itself is just so different and unique (and I’ll get into that more later).

The game itself is still a classic Kirby platformer at heart. You make your way through side-scrolling levels, trying to survive the onslaught of enemies and obstacles in your path, sometimes using level-specific gimmicks or transformations to reach the end. And like Kirby Squeak Squad, you will also find treasures scattered across each level, some of them just stranded along the beaten path, others stashed away in hidden areas, and some that may seem right in front of you, but require you to find or do something a bit earlier on it the level. These treasures aren’t necessary for the completion of the game, and really only offer you some small bonus features (sound test selections, and stuff to decorate your apartment with (something else I’ll talk about later), but finding them does definitely add some extra game time and replayability if you get into the “gotta collect them all” mindset, which I am always in whenever I’m gaming! =P

As for game length, if you just want to play through the game and get it done, the game itself is not very long. However, I don’t necessarily think the game too short either. If anything, I feel like the game has just the right amount of length, for both a normal and 100% playthrough. I have seen quite a few people complain about the length, especially considering how “easy” they think the game is, but honestly, in my mind, those people are not gamers….just complainers. There is no perfect game people…especially in an unbiased sense. The sooner you learn that, the better off you will be. I mean seriously though….what do you want? A game that is 20 worlds long, each world having 10 levels? If that isn’t pushing the envelope, I don’t know what is. But alas, I’m not going to get into a whole rant on that. As for extra stuff you can do in the game, aside from collecting all of the treasures in each level and getting high bead scores on all the stages, there are a few other things you can do and accomplish as well. For one, there are actually quite a few mini-games you can play that actually stack-up with the 100% game completion. These mini-games are just simple “find this,” “collect or destroy this much in the time limit,” and “get to the goal first,” type mini-games that you play over certain segments of each level, but they at least add a bit of variety to the game. My only suggestion to you is that you probably shouldn’t play all of these games at once. They are better left to do in small spurts during the main quest. I actually ended up waiting until the very end of the game and easily spent around two hours just working on that. Some of them can be quite fun and interesting though. Another thing you can do, as I briefly mentioned earlier, is that you can decorate your own apartment, a small living space for Kirby that plays no practical purpose during the course of the game, but something fun you can do (if you find decorating a useless room fun). You can decorate your room with a wide assortment of souvenirs/furniture/figurines and different wallpaper and carpet fabrics you unlock during the course of the game (through treasure chests, mini-games, and the in-game shops). My only gripe about this, aside from the fact that it just seems pointless, is that there is not very much functionality at all. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying the idea was bad or stupid, or anything like that. I know there are a few people out there who might find this fun, or at the very least, something interesting to try and do just because it’s there, and in that right, the idea is sensible. But the game doesn’t really encourage you to do any of it. They mention it once during the entire game, and I never really found myself going back there at all after that first time. I just wish they would have tried something else to make that feature just a bit more interactive with the game itself, considering how much time you can potentially spend getting beads to purchase all of the different furniture and fabrics, and just collecting them in general. After all, you do have to collect all the items if you want your file to say “100% Completed.”

As for the game controls, I think they work pretty well, considering how much of the Kirby formula was changed for this title. Movement and reaction time is usually pretty solid for the most part. Just make sure you don’t forget that you aren’t playing an older Kirby game where he can fly. Try to remember the yarn you are working with. =P

Now, one thing that really impressed me about this game, which is strange because normally I’m not as affected by this, was the graphics and music. I’ve always been a gameplay > graphics/music type of guy, but if there was one game that got me thinking otherwise (or at least “close to otherwise, because I love the gameplay here too), this game would be first on the list. The environments in this game are just beautiful, and the music fits so well with those environments. You normally wouldn’t think a world made out of yarn and fabric could be so appealing to the eye, but for this game…I just felt the opposite. I got the feeling that I was literally just staring into a work of art the entire time. Everything seemed just so aesthetically pleasing, and I loved just walking around and admiring the all of the environments and really getting into the music. Seriously….whoever created the graphics and the music…..I want to give you either a hand-shake or a hug after the amazing work you put into this game.

Another thing worth noting is that this game does have a 2-Player option for co-op. I will admit though, I haven’t exactly tested this out yet. I was kind of hoping to find someone to play this game with before I had to write about it, but the jerk never showed up. =\ Bah, he is a loser anyways. =P From what I have seen from videos, basically it’s a way where you can team-up with your partner to make some sections of the game a bit easier (for example, I saw a video where you could use your partner as a projectile against bigger enemies, and another part where you could use him/her as a stepping stone to jump to a higher place). It’s a pretty cool concept.I only wish I could have experienced it a bit before writing this. Oh well, I'm sure there is someone out there in this state who would play co-op with me...maybe even a cute girl wearing Wario clothes. ;) =P

Well, the only thing I really have to talk about now is replayability. Honestly, I wouldn’t say there is THAT much, in the sense that it’s probably not a game you want to immediately play again right after you finish , but I’m sure it’s definitely a game I will want to revisit to see some of the levels again and get WOWed once more by the amazing atmosphere the game presents many times in the future.

Overall, Feel Good did an amazing job creating this game and I give them major props for releasing a new, exciting, and eye-appealing chapter to the Kirby series, a very unique chapter at that. The game definitely excelled in its presentation and the execution was pretty damn good as well. It may not feel like a Kirby game, and there may be a few things in the game that kept it from being a perfect title (in my opinion anyway), but as a stand-alone game, it did just that…..it stood out. If I had to give it a score, I would give it a 4 or 4.5 out of 5.

LP Possibility: Hell Yes! Just stop asking me if it will be soon. I will LP the game when I’m ready to LP it. =P

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Well, I think I’ve rambled on enough about stuffz and epic yarnz for the week….at least for this blog entry anyways…considering I’m up to 5 pages in Microsoft Word now. So I guess I will leave it at that and bid you guys and gals adieu! See you next week!

Later folks!

10/31/10 - A Brief Halloweenish Update

2010-10-31T20:55:00.001-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKi….BOO!

Did that scare you? Probably not, so let’s try that again and just do it the normal way.

Hello everybody, SlimKirb...BOO!

Still no? Bah, fine, I’ll stop trying.

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another exciting blog entry! I hope you guys are having (or had) a Happy Halloween. As usual, because on college campuses the mindset of everybody except me is to go out partying and get drunk on Halloween, I of course have stayed in my dorm room chilling and working on homework. I know, it sounds kind of sucky, but I’d rather do something boring than go out and do something stupid. Besides, it’s not all boring. As I write this I am watching MadameWario’s Horror Land stream, which is going pretty fiercely, as she would say. :P

Anyways, don’t expect this entry to go on for very long. I know I promised to talk about Epic Yarn in this entry, but considering that I just now finished it and I had and still have a lot of work to do, I haven’t been able to collect my final thoughts on the game, but I will definitely do it next week, I promise! Besides that, other news in gaming, not much I really feel like getting into at this time. Donkey Kong Returns should be coming out in the next month, which I will probably be getting. Not sure if it will be on release or not though. I guess we will wait and see.

In Youtube news, Donkey Kong 64 has been completely filmed at this point, and I will be posting the extra video (the final video of the project) on that Monday, November 8th, so that should be ending really soon. Final project thoughts will of course be posted next weekend, but I’ve pretty much said throughout the project that it went pretty well, especially when you get a longer time limit near the end and get to finish it in less videos =3. For those wondering, in numbered parts, it will end up being 55 videos, the old project being 29 videos longer.

For Mario Party 7 (once again, spoiler warning for those who haven’t seen the actual playthrough yet, so if you haven’t and don’t want to be spoiled, you will probably want to avoid this paragraph), this week’s board went pretty well for the most part, except for that random span of like 3 or 4 turns at the end where I got jipped by Toadette. Thankfully though, the bonus stars were very kind to me (they could have been the exact opposite). As usual though, I held my ground really well when it came to the mini-games, and usually that is what does it for me, so I stuck to what I know and do best, and that seemed to work. The next board, Pyramid Park, should be interesting just because the game is played a bit differently than the other boards (the whole “everyone starts with 5 and you gain stars by stealing” thing is in effect). It’s definitely not my favorite board in this game, but for what it is, it’s all right I guess. I guess I’ll see you next weekend for that, but for now, I’m going to celebrate my perfect 2-0 record =)….before I get screwed out of it =(.

The last thing I want to mention, once again, is that I really want to thank all of my wonderful Youtube subscribers for being so awesome with subscribing lately. Barely even halfway into the month I was just approaching 18,000 subscribers, and now I’m halfway to 21,000. I just can’t believe it…I really can’t.

Anyways, once more, I do apologies for the somewhat short entry this week. I’ll have more to mention next time when I don’t have a million other things going on, and of course I’ll have my Epic Yarn discussion about how awesome and cute the game is. :P

Later fol….BOO!

Bah, still can’t get you guys. =(

=P

-SlimKirby

10/24/10 - October Partyin'

2010-10-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another fantabulous blog entry! Wait....I'm getting a red spell-check line under the word "fantabulous." WHY ISN'T THAT A WORD YET? And better yet, why isn't "SlimKirby" a word yet either? I guess the world will never know.

Anyways, what a week it has been. I'm reporting to you guys on the last day of my Fall Break. Yes, it has already come and gone, unfortunately, but what can you really expect from a 1-day break? Not much! That's what. For what it was though, it was pretty sweet. I got to hang out with the family, I got to play some sweet new games (which I still won't be talking about on here for a week or two), got to watch old Rugrats episodes at 6 AM.....the perfect 3-day vacation, am I right? =P

Aside from that though, things are going pretty well. Really starting to get hit hard with work at school though, and one of my class grades isn't exactly in a place where I deem acceptable, so I'll have to start paying attention to that more, but it shouldn't really effect very much if you are a reader or viewer. I still have ample amounts of time to do all of that stuff. It's just when I have a choice to work on class stuff or relax/nap, I sometimes choose the latter when I shouldn't. It's something I will work on though, and I am usually dedicated when it comes to my studies.

In terms of Youtube, quite a bit went down this weekend. Mario Party 7 has officially started and after the recording of the first board, I've never been as satisfied as I was with the first recording than I have in a long time...which is kind of funny because my first attempt at recording the board was horrendous, and I stopped after 20 minutes. XD I'll get more into that board in a second; first I'll briefly discuss Donkey Kong 64. At this point, I have up to Episode #50 recorded, and assuming all things go well, that project will be ending within the next two 2 weeks (I'll have a better estimation next weekend after I record the final world of the game). What can I say? The game has treated me very well thus far, despite the malfunctioning controllers and the gloomy galleons. For those of you wondering about the bane of my existence in that project, make sure you check out my video on Tuesday for some sweet rabbit race action.

Getting back to Mario Party 7, as I said before, the recording went well....very well...in both the technical sense and the gameplay sense. I can't believe how much I dominated that game. Sorry for spoilers if any of you haven't watched that board yet. I would say that was my biggest domination of all time, but I'm sure there has been another instance where I was on the ball. My only regret in that game/recording was losing on Funderwall the first time as I could have dominated even further, but the fact that I would have won all of the bonus stars no matter what they were kind of speaks for itself. Because of how well this recording went, I am very much looking forward to Friday when I will record Pagoda Peak, which feels very weird to say, considering how much I have bashed Mario Party 7 in the past. But basically, it went well, I enjoyed the experience, and I hope you guys enjoyed the videos as well.

With Donkey Kong 64 coming to a close very soon, once again, the thought of what my next project will be continues to jump around in my mind. I have to honestly say that I am still not really sure what to do next, but I'm sure I will figure it out eventually. I just hope this lack of being able to come to a decision doesn't delay the project or any other projects of mine.

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Game Chat:

Last week I mentioned that I had purchased both Wii Party and Epic Yarn, and so many of you guys have been asking me to give me thoughts on the game. However, I'm still trying to soak up what I can of these games (or rather, what I have left of these games), before I can give my final thoughts. So in the meantime, I'm going to get a little nostalgic and talk about another game...a very old game that I grew up with which I recently rediscovered and haven't been able to put down very easily.

Lemmings

After seeing this game, here is how I imagine your reactions. Half of you scratched your heads in confusion, while the other half gasped and immediately got flooded with very fond and nostalgic memories of this game. I don't like to think that I'm THAT old, but Lemmings goes back quite a ways in the world of gaming, back in the olden PC and early SNES days (probably even before that). Back in the day, Lemmings was a legit, hardcore PC game.

Basically, Lemmings is a puzzle game where you have to navigate these creatures (called Lemmings) to the exit in a very wide assortment of different levels, and puzzles (that obviously get harder and more complex as you continue). The lemmings themselves have a variety of different tasks and jobs they can take on while trying to make it to the exit, such as climbing, digging, building, and blocking, and you have to use these tasks effectively and correctly if you want to get these lemmings to safety before time is up, or before the Lemmings get viciously and utterly destroyed by traps and obstacles, which can range from lava and acid, smashing walls, or to simply just having them all walk off a cliff. At first, the puzzles are really easy and they give you enough tools to work with so you can easily figure out what you need to do in order to succeed. However, in later levels, they limit you on what can do and use, and try to get to you to focus on different strategies, some of which require you to use simple tools in ways you wouldn't imagine. You really have to know this game, inside and out, if you want to complete the entire thing. Speaking of which, if you want to beat this game 100%, expect to devote quite a bit of time to doing so. There are 120 levels (4 different difficulties, 30 levels for each), and while the first half of the game moves pretty quickly, the later levels have the capabilities of stumping you for a good 30 minutes or up to an hour. It's that complex, even when the exit could be right in front of your eyes. Getting there is usually the problem.

I have very fond memories of me playing this game with my dad when I was very young, and even he had problems with getting past some of the levels in the Level 50 range. But nevertheless, it's an experience I will never forget, and because of those fond memories, I decided to pick the game up once again.....that and a fellow Youtuber I watch (roundthewheelrtw) started a a playthrough (technically a replay, since his channel got deleted) of Lemmings that I've been keeping up with. At this point, even after playing for very long periods of time over the last few days, I'm still have quite a few levels to go (difficult levels at that). Although the words don't say much, that may give you an idea of how complex this game is, if it's giving the great SlimKirby so much trouble. =P

Anyways, one of the reasons why I started talking about this game today, is that I think I have decided that I am going to do a playthrough of the game on Youtube. It won't be a playthrough I start soon (maybe not even in 2011 either), but after getting so familiar with the game again, accompanied by so much nostalgia and fond memories, it's something I do want to share with you guys at some point. Again, just don't expect it to be soon. =P So in other words.....LP Possibility? Yes!

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Anyways, that is my entry for this week, join me next week on Halloween (if I decide to update) when I talk about more stuff, and possibly Wii Party or Kirby's Epic Yarn. See you guys then!

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

10/17/10 - Is it Time to Spin Some Epic Yarn?

2010-10-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another blog update!

Lot of excitement this week and the coming week(s) with a lot of major stuff happening in the world of games and the world of SlimKirby. So much that I don't even know where to begin....

First off, if the title isn't any indication, I have purchased Kirby's Epic Yarn at this point, as well as Wii Party. I unfortunately have not played either though, because I just returned from purchasing both games, and I need to get this blog done immediately because I have a group meeting in a few hours. After that, I should get some time to at least play one of the games (probably Epic Yarn), and then the other game tomorrow. I may give some updates about game progress through Twitter, but I probably won't talk about either games on the blog for a few weeks until I'm finished with them and when I can look at them and give my final thoughts. I have finished Metroid: Other M though, and will be talking about that game at the end of this entry.

Second, as for other things going on, I really don't have much to say. Things are going well, and are kind of calming down for the time being. I expect things to pick up and get more intense really soon, just from the nature of what my life is, but I'll be ready for it when the time comes!

In Youtube news, by the time the next entry rolls around, I will have started a new project, that project being Mario Party 7. Not going to talk about it much, as I'll wait for the first board to release before I do, but it should definitely be some good times. Whether that is sarcasm or not, I don't know, I guess we'll just wait and see. =P In Donkey Kong 64 news, I'm still chugging along collecting gold bananas, continuing to get closer to the end of the game. By the time the next entry rolls around, I should be about finished (or finished) with the 6th world, ready to start the 7th, and final of the main worlds. That's really all I have to say about that project though, so I guess you pretty much get the standard "Still moving along, still going well" update I usually give for that project. =P Anyways, I also need to make an update video pretty soon. I'm not sure if I'll do it though between this update and the next. It really depends on if I can get motivated to make one. I may just wait until after I'm finished with Donkey Kong 64, because I really don't have much to discuss.

Also, speaking of Youtube, as of today, I'm sure you guys have a lot of questions and congrats for me and my channel, in regards to its current state. At this time, I am not at liberty to divulge any sort of information now, or possibly ever, so I'm going to have to keep quiet on that front. However, I will say thanks for all the congratulations I have gotten thus far and will continue to get. It means a lot to me. =)

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Game Chat:

Metroid: Other M

I still remember my first reactions when this game was first revealed at E3 2009. It was right after being shown Super Mario Galaxy 2, the sequel to perhaps my favorite game of the last decade, and I was just wondering what this next big surprise was that Nintendo was going to reveal. Then entered Other M with its incredible graphics and design, unique looking gameplay and combat system, and the "Mysterious Black Dude" (as he was referred to as for several months) who asked the timeless question that hit the video game world by storm, "Remember Me?" despite him not ever showing up in a game prior to Other M. Safe to say, Other M made quite an impact on the World of Nintendo during that conference and throughout the next year.

When the next E3 rolled around, and with Other M still not ready to be released quite yet, quite a few other games ended up stealing the show and the spotlight that Other M had been comfortable in for the last several months. However, it was revealed that the game would be coming out very soon, and sure enough, it did within the next two months, so that still kept the excitement going. However, then the game reviews started coming out....

Now, let me make this straight right off the bat. First, I've NEVER been one to take game reviews with more than a grain of salt. After Nintendo Power's low score for Mario Party 8 (despite them not really saying anything negative about the game in the their review), and various other review sites' idiotic reviews and miscalculated scores for other games, I try not to listen to reviews very much until I have at least some experience with the game myself. Second, I'm not implying that Other M had any bad reviews...if anything, most of the reviews have actually been pretty positive, but with a few noticeable and almost insistent complaints and critiques. It's just that....ugh....the things they complain about sometimes, I just will never understand.

So, I'm just going to put this simply, and bluntly.....I think the game is awesome. In the long run, I think the game was made very well, the story, although somewhat odd for a Metroid game (especially in the personification of Samus), worked for what the game was, and just playing the game in general was just fun and an overall enjoyable experience. My only real gripe about the game is that it is actually pretty short. In terms of other Metroid games, it was about the same length (for a first, blind playthrough, mind you), probably even longer, but when you play those other, older games, and when you get to the end, it feels like the end. With Other M, it just didn't seem like it. I wasn't quite ready to put the controller down and I wanted more (and yes, this was after the ACTUAL ending, so I did beat the actual final boss and do the escape sequence). I guess it's because the game's story itself didn't really have much of a general direction. It was pretty much "let's sit down and watch the events unfold, and once everything does, we'll call that the end." While I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, again, it did give me the feeling of wanting more, which you can interpret as a good thing, a bad thing, or both. In my case, it's both.

The story and the characterization of Samus Aran were the main things I've seen reviewers and game fanboys gripe about the most. As I said earlier, while I do admit that it was strange direction for Metroid and Samus Aran, I honestly think it was more strange because it was different than it was bad. I mean, if we take a look at the past, although Samus has not necessarily been a silent hero (as shown through Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion where she does have some dialogue and the journal entries), she's still a pretty quiet character, and because of this quietness, she kind of gets that "Female Badass - I'm Gonna Blow You Up Because I'm On Important Mission" kind of vibe. Other M ended up downplaying that vibe quite a bit actually, and because of that, I can kind of see why that didn't please the fans very much. On the other hand though, when you look at the facts, Samus's complete personality was still pretty much a stab in the dark, and I thought the attempt made by both Nintendo and Team Ninja ended up being a good one that worked for the game and the storyline. Yeah, Samus has some emotions, and yeah, she talks about her commanding officer and the crush she has on him for a large portion of the game, but no emotions and feelings only would have been worse. In fact, this game's characterization almost seems sensible when looking at Metroid Fusion, another Metroid game I'm really starting to appreciate after Other M, so I really don't see what the issue is. Just be thankful that Samus doesn't say "Ewwww! A Bug!" every single time she enters a room, if you are one of those complainers.

As for gameplay, obviously one of the main gimmicks is the way that you switch between 3rd-person and 1st-person perspective, and you do this by the position of the Wiimote (controller style for 3rd, remote style for 1st). This "change" is a bit awkward at first, but in the end, it works well and it is implemented pretty well. It's just something you have to get used to at first. A good thing about this feature is whenever you change into 1st-person (since you have to whenever you need to use missiles or your grappling hook), the game actually slows down a little so you can adjust yourself to the new perspective, which I think was a nice feature. You can tell that the game developers really tried to get you accustomed to the game mechanics, which I think is a plus for the gamer, and the developer.

As for extra features and replayability, since this is a Metroid game, you can expect that the game allows you to finish the game on your own terms with whatever items you have, but as a bonus, also encourages you to explore each area thoroughly to make sure you collect every item in the game. As usual, finding all of the items can be very tricky, and at times, very tedious, but keep in mind, you don't even have to play that way if you want. One of the things I noticed in this game is that whenever you leave a room, sometimes the game will mark the map if you missed something, and by the end of the game, everything is marked for you, so you don't have to worry about spending hours looking for one small indentation in the wall in each room of the game. This way, you can just go to the room where the item is in (or near) and just observe the surroundings. As for bonus features, when you fully complete the game, you get a Hard Mode that you can play, which I assume has areas with more enemies (or if not, tougher enemies that do more damage), and is just in general, harder to complete. I'm not sure if there is a prize for completing this mode (100%) or not, because I haven't attempted a 2nd playthrough yet, but I'll probably give it a try next time I decide to play through the game again. Also for unlockables, you can unlock some gallery art of the game and characters in the game, which is pretty cool, along with a Movie Gallery mode where you can watch every cutscene in the game. A cool thing about the movie gallery is that you can actually watch all of the cutscenes in one giant block, and it actually includes small little gameplay clips in between each cutscene, so it feels like you are actually watching a movie of the entire game, which I thought was a really cool feature.

Anyways, I think I've said all I needed to say about this game. Overall, it was a very neat experience and I enjoyed every bit of it, even though it was a little on the short side. Despite all of the criticism and negativity the game got (even though the reviews were generally pretty good), I don't think the "negatives" really got in the way of the actual game, if anything, I think they worked with what the game actually was and was intending to be, and that's why I enjoyed the game and could almost look past them. Although it's not a perfect game (not that any game is perfect) it's definitely one I would support, and on a review scale, I would give it a 4/5 (4.5 at most).

LP Possibility: Ok....so, will I LP this game? Well, in the grand scheme of things, if I ever did do a Metroid LP, first I would probably do Super Metroid, and then Zero Mission before I would even think about doing Other M, just because I've had more nostaglic moments with those games. But in the long run, yes, if I ever felt like doing Other M sometime in the future, I would, because it's a great game. Don't expect this to happen until much later though.....I'm talking months or even years from now.

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Well, that's about it for this entry! I'll talk to you guys next weekend and I'll see you throughout the week for my normal video updates and random twitter updates. Later folks!

-SlimKirby

10/10/10 - That's A Lot of Tens!

2010-10-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here! I hope you guys are having a pleasant 10/10/10! I wish I could say the same, but things have really only been average for the Slimster. Nothing bad, but nothing really that amazing or interesting either. I'm kind of just at that point in my semester where things are just "meh", wishing I could be doing something much more exciting, but unable to do just because I'm so stuck on my normal routine. But alas, I'm sure you guys don't want to hear me talk about that.

First off, I do have some great news! My Wii was actually returned to me quite a bit earlier than I was expecting! And after running some tests, things seem to be running well. What does this mean for the future? A lot of games I can play over the next few months, and the start (and return (CSS)) of some Youtube projects. I actually got to play some Metroid: Other M this weekend, and I gotta say....it's been a lot of fun and I am enjoying the game a lot. It's not the most perfect game (obviously), but what game is? I'll talk more about the game in the coming weeks when I've completed it (and maybe 100%ed it), but I am definitely glad that I purchased the game, despite all of the so-so reviews. This next weekend I am probably going to get both Wii Party and Kirby: Epic Yarn, so soon I'll probably have a lot to say about those games as well.

Speaking of games, and since I kind of mentioned "Youtube" in my last paragraph, I promised ShadowMario41 that I would give him a small plug in this entry (although I would have done it anyways). Do you guys remember The Maze Game? If not, the Maze Game was a short Let's Play I did back in 2008, a game that was actually created by ShadowMario41 through Game Maker. Although the game and project has been highly regarded as a joke through my videos and other projects, it was actually a pretty well-created game despite the limitations of what it could be. Anyways, the reason I am bringing this up is because The Maze Game has actually been remade. Teaming up with Blargg Pit graphics designer, MegaFreak400, The Maze Game has been repolished (to the extreme) and looks amazing. Of course, the game itself really isn't a new game, moreso a remake of the original (so you will see a lot of the same levels), however, the work these two put into the game is incredible, and they would both really appreciate it if you would give the game a try. Of course, for those wondering if I am going to replay the maze game (or rather, play the remake) for my channel, it is something that I will probably do eventually, but not this moment. Anyways, you can download the Maze Game from the following link....
The Maze Game Remastered

Since I'm kind of transitioning into Youtube stuff, I'll go ahead and talk about that next. Still, not much really worth mentioning, as I am still working on (and will probably continue to work on) Donkey Kong 64. At this point, I have fully recorded up to Video #35, and will probably have another session during the week so I can continue right along through that game. I'm still not sure what # I will end up at the end of the project (in terms of video #s), but now I'm at the point where I wouldn't be surprised if I end before Video #60, although that's still kind of unlikely. The recording for the 5th world actually went REALLY well....so well that I was actually shocked by the end of the recording. I swear, the 4th world of the game is just a nightmare....a nightmare I am glad to be finished with. Hopefully the 6th world (my least favorite BEFORE the playthrough) goes at least decently.

With my Wii back, it's also time to start planning Mario Party 7, and just as a small preview for those who read my blog, I actually plan to start the project in the next 3, or maybe even 2 weeks). There are just a few loose ends I want to take care of before I start the project (one more mini-game to unlock, and one more mode to fully complete). However, even if I don't, it's not going to be a big deal, as I can always do that while I'm in the midst of the Party Mode portion of the game. Still though, I'd at least like to have ONE playthrough of the game where I have everything unlocked before I start recording. Anyways, despite this game being my least favorite of the console games, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it now. Keep in mind, "least favorite" doesn't necessarily mean I hate it....I just like it less than the others. The game is definitely the most long-winded of the Mario Party games, in that it always takes forever to play one game. But yeah, that's about all I need to say about that....look forward to the playthrough VERY soon.

As for other projects to start after Donkey Kong 64, I have to admit that I am still having some issues trying to decide. There are a lot of different ideas in the air....but it's just choosing one that I would be set on doing. That is where I'm having my most difficulty. There is one idea I've kind of been throwing around in my head more than the others, so it will probably be that game in the end, but I'm still not ready to tell you guys.

And finally, for CSS, we are going to get back into discussion about the rest of TTYD and future projects within the next week, do not worry. We should finally be back on track soon. It's just that the Wii's repair (of mine) and a few other things kind of just got in the way of things and prevented us from really making any progress on that front.

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Game Talk:

Although not really a "game," last week I promised you guys that I would take a little bit of time during this entry to talk about the 3DS, the next handheld from Nintendo, which recently got quite a bit of information revealed. Don't expect this to be complete coverage or anything, just a few things I've heard about and will spend a little bit of time discussing from an opinionated standpoint...that's really about it. This really won't be that in-depth at all.

First up, the new system is rumored to be released in North America around March 2011. Although I am relieved that it isn't releasing this year (since I barely have any currency), it still seems like the release is just around the corner in only 6 months time (at least), and I'm not really ready for it. Don't get me wrong, the system itself looks amazing and I am definitely going to get one, no question about it, but still...it seems like we only just now got info on it. I was personally hoping for a release sometime at the end of 2011, at the very earliest. So yeah, I guess I got to start saving for that (after all the awesome Wii games coming out of course =D). Another thing I am kind of disappointed about was that I only got a Nintendo DSi last Christmas, and I was kind of hoping that would be around for a little while before the 3DS came out. Instead, it feels like I got that system, and then only a little bit later, something new was announced. Felt kind of like a wasted purchase...even though the DSi is awesome too.

Another thing that has kind of been turning heads (in a good way or bad way, that's up for interpretation) is the price of the system. The launch price for Japan was announced to be set at 25000 yen, which translates to about 298 dollars in American currency (if you are not American, sorry, I don't know all the exchange rates X_X). Now, while this may not be the exact price of the 3DS, I think it is safe to assume that it will still cost a pretty penny....a very pretty penny. Not everybody just has 300 dollars laying around (or even 200). However, when you look at the facts, they are using some high-tech stuff for this system, and it it is implementing a lot of different features, so the price is kind of understandable. If it were Sony releasing the system, you would be broke for even considering to purchase it. The price is indeed hefty, but as I said, it's at least understandable. Besides, as mentioned, the exchanges rates won't necessarily prove anything. The price could always go down for the final release.

One thing I actually got really excited about learning was that there is going to be a Virtual Console library for Game Boy games, which will definitely be a big hit among Nintendo gamers. Say what you want about the sparse updates for the Wii's Virtual Console, or the "Why pay money when you can emulate it?" excuse, Nintendo is still going to get a lot of money from this implementation, and die-hard Nintendo fans are still going to want to purchase the classic handheld greats. Super Mario Land and Link's Awakening are two of the titles that were announced to be the VC front-runners, but I'm sure there will be many other timeless classics to also grace the presence of the 3DS. Whether this library will include Game Boy Advance games...I don't know (don't remember), so if anyone does, please tell.

As for games, there is not much I really have to say. A new Kirby game was announced (which kind of reminds me as a cross between Amazing Mirror and Canvas Curse), which looks pretty sweet, but otherwise, there is not much I really have to say (that wasn't already talked about during my E3 discussions).

So far though, the system is looking to be pretty amazing, despite a things (early release and price), but those "negatives", if you could even call them negatives, are pretty minimal. If I find out some more information that I think is worth mentioning, I will be sure to post it.

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That's about it for this entry guys! I will see you next week for another adventure into The Mind of SlimKirby.

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

10/3/10 - Attack of the Awesome All-Nighters!

2010-10-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, Messed-Up-ScheduleKirby here, and welcome to another week From the Slightly UnFocused Mind of SlimKirby! =P

Ok, not really sure what was up with that intro, but whatever. I'm really not that unfocused, just a little off balance. It's a weird feeling when there are only 7 hours left in the day after waking up, that's for sure. :P

Anyways, I guess should elaborate on what exactly I am referring to. I'm probably making this a bigger deal than I need to be, because this isn't exactly something that's really that foreign to people, but it's something that I haven't done very much, if not at all, and it happened twice in a period of 2 days. I'm referring to the act of "all-nighting," where you basically stay up all night. All-nighting is actually a pretty activity, especially for a college student like myself. You can really only afford to do it if you are good at planning around your normal schedule, and planning for a way to get back onto the schedule after doing it. I think I'm actually a pretty responsible individual, which is the only reason even thought about doing this. And the best part is, I had a lot of fun with it, because I wasn't alone. :P

On Friday night I was in a Skype call with good friend PowerToMario, and the always lovely and fierce MadameWario. We weren't really doing anything major, just chilling out enjoying our Friday nights to ourselves when we just decided to start a call. We really didn't expect it to last til 9 in the morning when we firs entered the call, but it totally did. We entertained ourselves by watching whatever was on TV at the time and commentating over it, whether it was paid programming commercials, a ridiculous cheerleading movie (PTM dreams of being a Clover), and even an episode of Pokemon Sinnoh. It was crazy, but it was also a lot of fun. And let me tell you, if PTM ever does an episode of one his LPs under the amount of weariness he was in....it would be the funniest, yet most incomprehensible LP episode ever. XD

Then, the following night, we pretty much did the same thing over again, this time joined by long-time LP video uploader ThePastaKing (try to find the obvious joke in that statement). We didn't just watch stuff this time, we actually got some games out and played (unfortunately no wifi or co-op though). Me and Madame stuck to our common ground, Mario Party (BIG SURPRISE!) and PTM did too at one point, but also played his Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn file while getting information from me and the King. We also watched more Pokemon at one point too. Anyways, this call went on a bit longer, but not too much more, but it was also a lot of fun. Madame and I laughed at and teased each other about our Mario Party 3 experiences we were having, PK went on and on and on and on about his strategy game knowledge, and PTM was.....once again, just all over the place. It was just so awesome and totally worth the weird schedule for this weekend.

One thing I started thinking about though after these experiences, was the possibility of capitalizing on this for a future event. I'm not saying we'll have just another random all-nighter and then record it for Youtube or a stream or something, but definitely the idea of doing a late night event of some sort, possibly live. I mean, I've done late night streams before, in that my streams usually end up lasting until around midnight or 1 AM my time, but I'm talking later than that. Of course, they'd have to be planned well in advance, and planned around the notion of actually being able to host something like that. Sometimes, especially for me, I just can't randomly decide "Ok, I'm doing this tonight." I'm one who usually likes to stay on a pretty consistent schedule. I'll start workshopping some ideas, and we'll see what happens in the future. In the mean time though....BRING IT ON! >=D And if any of my readers have had some awesome all-nighters before, go ahead and talk about them if you want. Kinda inviting some audience participation here. =P

Something else I briefly wanted to mention, that I probably should have talked about before, is that I've kind of dropped the whole heavily-structured blog format, and I think I'm going to keep it that way. I have more fun writing these entries when they are done from a free-writing perspective rather than a "I Have to Stick to the Format" type of perspective, and I guess, what's more fun for the blog is probably the better way to go. It makes me feel less stressed about updating, and I have a little more fun with it. Plus, I think these last few entries have actually been pretty good. So yeah, no more formal blog updates from now on.

In other news, still no information on the Wii, although I didn't really expect to get any information on it yet. I'd expect maybe getting it back this week and then picking it up when I'm briefly home for the weekend, but I can't make any guarantees. I wish I could get it back soon though so I can start playing some Wii Party and Metroid: Other M. I also need to buy Samurai Warriors 3, and Kirby: Epic Yarn when it comes out. When I get it back, there will be a big wiiaction (reaction) from me. :P

Besides that though, things are going well, I guess. I'm about at the half-way point for the semester and things are looking ok, I suppose. Nothing really terrible anyways, which I guess is a good thing. My classes are definitely a lot more difficult than I originally expected, but that's sometimes the case for people.

In Youtube news, Donkey Kong 64 is still chugging along. I had a very brutal recording session with the 4th world of the game (not the most exciting world, that's for sure, and it's actually quite tedious as well). I would explain what happens/happened, but I'm sure you will see this week when I release the videos. Water worlds have never really been that fun! :P

For those wondering about CrystalStarStudio, other members of the Blargg Pit who haven't been updating as much, and any announcements regarding future projects, I only ask you guys, once again, to remain patient. There really is a lot going on for me and ALL of us, and for some it's been difficult to keep up with everything due to other priorities. However, we're all doing our best for you guys, and we're doing all that we can. One of the main things holding this back, specifically on the announcements and CSS, is my Wii being gone, so those things should be addressed before too long. For anything else, just be patient, please! :P

Ok, well, I think that about does it for this entry. As I hinted in a prior entry, Game of the Weeks are now no longer going to be done weekly (so I guess I'll come up with a new name for that section). I apologize if you really loved that section, but just keep in mind that it isn't going away forever....just not going to happen every week.

And kind of as a preview for next week, I'll try to talk about the 3DS next time because there was some information revealed to the public this past week. I would talk about it tonight, but I'm running out of time! So yeah, have that to look forward to!

Anyways, see you guys next week! Later folks!
-SlimKirby

9/26/10 - So Many Games...So Little Time and Moolah

2010-09-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

That's right! I'm actually hoping to get the blog out on time this week....mostly because I actually had time to work on it today. Anyways, another week has come and gone, and my fall semester is already 1/3 over. For those wondering about my classes and how I'm doing; let's just say I'm hanging in there. It's a lot of hard work, but I'm getting it done.

I don't really have anything to talk about or complain about this week, so I will save you guys from having to hear about it. Besides, things have been going pretty well for me regardless. My sleep schedule has been kind of messed up *glares and smiles at someone*, but it's cool. I'm still getting things done, and getting them done right.

In other news, the release of Wii Party is coming very, very soon. Unfortunately I don't currently have a Wii I could use, which I finally did get sent in for repairs (or at least tomorrow when I go by the post office), so hopefully I get that back before too long. Besides, I still have to play Metroid: Other M, purchase Samurai Warriors 3, and hell, even Epic Yarn might be out by the time I get it back. There are really a lot of games coming out in this one month period. Money for them isn't really a concern or anything, but still, it's a lot of games.

Anyways, I did want to talk about Wii Party specifically, because I've been looking at a lot of information about it, and being the Mario Party guy of Youtube, people have been interested in what I think about the game so far (from previews obviously), and the possibility of whether not I'll have a Wii Party video series on my channel. So far from what I have seen about the game, I can say for certain that it is definitely not going to be like Mario Party (besides the obvious similarities). However, I wouldn't say that is necessarily a bad thing. The game seems to be more oriented to the board game aspect, which I think is cool. I like board games after all. From what I've been hearing from reviews, it hasn't been scoring very highly, but neither have the other Mario Party games, and I've enjoyed them. Sometimes I think people put too much emphasis on the review scores rather than what is actually said in the reviews themselves. After all, there was that one case of a Twilight Princess review where the Gamecube version scored higher than the Wii version, despite the review telling everyone to get the Wii version because it was better. Anyways, I am very much looking forward to Wii Party despite all the criticism it has been getting. Not to mention I still don't see why Nintendo completely refuses to put online in these mainstream titles. It's really gotten to the point where it's not that Nintendo Wifi is bad...it's just that they refuse to use it, which kinda makes me mad. I don't think online play makes a game, but I do think that it enhances it for more playability, and it just doesn't make sense to why they refuse to put it in. As for a possible Wii Party project in the future, I'm definitely not going to count that out. Just let me finish the Mario Parties first! :P

Moving on Youtube, things are still going smoothly with Donkey Kong 64. At the time of this blog, I'm up to Episode #15 being uploaded, and in recordings I'm up to #23. In comparison with my old project, I'm about 7 videos ahead, which isn't that surprisingly given the time limit and such, but still, I'm glad that I'm making a pretty smooth progression through the game. I'm also having a lot of fun with it.

For future projects, these are still things I am thinking about. I have a few ideas at this time, but again, the big thing is figuring out when I want to bring them out. Right now, the only thing known for sure is Mario Party 7 which can be expected by the end of the month (assuming I get my Wii back ok). The same could pretty much be said for CSS as well. Don't expect anything right now, but once we get things figured out, we'll be sure to get moving on that as well.

I think that will about do it for this week's entry, but since I promised you guys a Game of the Week, I'll do that now.

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Game of the Week:

This game of the week has been something I've been meaning to do for awhile now, but I was unsure of whether or not it would be a project I would do in the future, since one of the things I try to do in these sections is talk about future project possibilities. However, a good friend of mine has recently started a project of a game that fits the same bill, so I figured that it might be a good time to talk about. So...in other words.....WELCOME TO MARIO GOLF!

Mario Golf (N64)

Next to the Mario Parties, and maybe Mario Kart, Mario Golf is probably my favorite sub-franchise, and I'm ticked they haven't brought it to the Wii yet. Either way, that's not the point, the point is I love Mario Golf. A lot of people wonder how Mario Golf could possibly be that much fun, just because it's Golf, but for some reason, it works....and it works well. Obviously, being Mario, you can't really expect a lot of realism, but when it comes to the gameplay, it feels authentic, which I think is a big charm of the game. Even though the sequel, Toadstool Tour (which is what ShadowMarioXLI is currently playing on his channel), improves on the formula of the series, I wouldn't say it really does that much extra to take away from the original. The original is definitely more challenging as your shots have to be precise, and you don't have the advantage of seeing your shot in action all the way. Plus you don't have the rather cheap "super topspin" or "super backspin either. Anyways, for awhile, this turned me off from the original since i got really into Toadstool Tour for a period of time, but recently in the last few years, I gave the original another try, and I got instantly hooked and had a really good time with it. Now I ironically think I'm better at the original than Toadstool Tour. XD

Now for those who haven't played Mario Golf, there really isn't that much to discuss. It's Golf with Mario characters and that is basically it. However, if you are only expecting just normal golf, that's not completely true. There are a variety of different modes you can play in addition. There is Speed Golf, where you are timed on how fast you can finish the courses, Ring Attack, where you have to hit your ball through rings scattered across specific holes and then score the par, Club Slots, where your club set is limited to just 3 clubs before you tee off (chosen via a slot machine), and even a fun little mini-golf mode (which I found kind of disappointing when they didn't bring it back for Toadstool Tour). So yeah, the fun doesn't have to stop at just the tournaments.

One of the biggest challenges of the game is unlocking all the characters. To unlock the characters, you have to play against computer-controlled versions of those characters and beat them in Match Play. From the get-go, you can probably expect how difficult these can be, especially since the characters are generally expected to hit the fall further than you and are programmed to at least play competently. You won't see them hit it out of bounds or in the water very often. They also have the ability to randomly get super long putts and ridiculous chip-ins that you normally wouldn't expect them to get so easily, but that's the downfall of playing against a random AI. Unlocking all the characters, I think, is one of the most rewarding challenges of the entire N64 library of games (not because of the characters, just the feeling of getting everything). Obviously it's not THE most rewarding, but still, when I did it for the very first time, I was very happy because of how difficult it was. Because of this, if I ever do a playthrough of the game, I won't be stupid enough to delete all the data (on my N64 cartridge or Virtual Console copy), so I will not unlock them all again....let's make that straight right away. =P

Overall though, for what the game is, it's really fun, and despite what it may seem, I think it has quite a bit of replay value. I often find myself playing a round or two just out of boredom. Of course though, if you aren't into golfing games, you might have trouble getting into the game, but you don't have to exactly be a golf enthusiast to enjoy it either. That's what I love about Mario games. They can make anything a lot more fun. =P If I had to give it a score, I would probably give it a 4/5.

Future Project Possibility: I will say right now that I am very interested in doing a Mario Golf project in the future (possibly this one), but it definitely won't be for awhile. I'm thinking that after I finish Mario Party (and Wii Party -_-), I might try to advance to some of the other Mario subfranchises, and Mario Golf will probably be one of the first ones I do.

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Ok, that's about it for this entry! See you guys next week! Later folks!
- SlimKirby

9/20/10 - A Somewhat Philosophical (But Still Quite Late) Entry

2010-09-20T18:25:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

Hooray for another blog entry, and “Double Hooray!” for it being late! I know it really feels like I’m not taking this blog seriously, but I assure you that it is nothing like that. Things have truly been a lot more hectic than I’ve given them credit for, and I was working until like 1 AM last night before MegaFreak400 reminded me, “Hey! You have a blog to do, don’t you?” At that point, I was ready to move away from the keyboard and not even think about writing anything at that point. I do apologize if some of you guys truly look forward to my blog entries, but I really have to prioritize the way I do things, and unfortunately my blog is at the bottom of that list when it comes to things I have to do on Sunday. Trust me though, it would be a lot higher if I didn’t have any classes the next day…but unfortunately I can’t get that lucky.

So yeah, if you couldn’t tell, things have been really busy for the Slimster once again. I’m not sure what is up with my professors this semester, but they are seriously out to get me. One of them is set on assigning really difficult programming assignments and is a real hardass when it comes to things he doesn’t care for, and two others teach a class filled with very difficult mathematical content….content I define as “Who Cares Mathematics.” Generally, I’m actually somewhat of a math enthusiast, but when it comes to this kind of math, I just stare at the problem and say to myself, “does the fate of the world really depend on knowing how to use Taylor’s Theorem and MacLaurin Series?” I swear, after midway through Calculus I, math was just ruined for me. It really sucks that my major pretty much requires these types of classes, and I’ll do what I can to pass them and come out of them with good grades, but I really hope I don’t lose my sanity over it, because that would just not be worth it.

Besides that though, the week really wasn’t that terrible. There were some downs, but there were also some ups too. Things often alternate in the world of SlimKirby, I’ve started to notice. One minute I could be getting excellent news about an opportunity that could further my life and help me obtain an exciting future career, and the next minute I could be feuding with a close friend. It’s a shame life can’t be all gumdrops and lollipops, but the world doesn’t really work that way, now does it? You can try to change it, but it probably ain’t gonna happen…..life just sucks in general. I know that’s a rather negative view to have on things, but the way I see it, it’s only a general outlook, not a feeling. Even the most unfortunate person is bound to have a stroke of luck and goodness every now and then, and when they do, they should enjoy it…..they should feel warmly about it….they should EMBRACE IT…THEY SHOULD LOVE IT! THEY SHOULD….ok, getting a little carried away there. Anyways, yeah, I’m not saying that you should just dread life in general, I’m just saying you shouldn’t go into it expecting only good things, because most of the time, you will be easily disappointed, and that’s not that much better than feeling miserable all the time. So my motto is, be prepared for the ugly, so you can deal with the bad stuff as soon as possible and then enjoy the things that make you happy. I know it’s a rather weird, maybe even a blasphemous, viewpoint, but it’s worked for me at least, and I’m a happy-go-lucky, all-around, nice guy……..right?......RIGHT? You better have answered yes to that. >=( =P

And that actually brings up another point….why are people so obsessed with gumdrops being used as a metaphor for happiness? I’ve never found gumdrops to be that exciting. In fact, I’ve always found them to have a rather bland taste, plus the fact that small pieces can get stuck to your teeth….very annoying. =\

In Youtube news (yes, that’s right, screw the dotted-line format I’ve been using), Donkey Kong 64 has been moving pretty smoothly so far. I’m already on the road to finishing the project in a lot less videos, and at this point I already have the first 3 worlds recorded (not completely though (I still have World 3’s boss fight to record and I have to go back and collect a few things in World 1 and 2, but I don’t imagine that taking me very long to do)). Not sure when I’ll get the chance to record more, but hopefully Thursday, or even tomorrow, opens up a window of opportunity. I’m actually really enjoying the project thus far. It’s given me a lot of time to think about the old days when I was playing through the game during my first few playthroughs of the game. I won’t get into it now, because I will in a future video, but I actually have a lot of history with this game, complete with many fond memories.

For those wondering about any future projects on the horizon, I honestly wouldn’t expect any at this time. Right now it looks to just be Donkey Kong 64 for the next few weeks, mainly because at this time I don’t even have my Wii, and some of the projects I’ve been thinking about are only playable on my Wii system (keep in mind, this means Wii, Gamecube, and Virtual Console games, not just Wii games). Before anyone brings up the possibility of me bringing another system with me, let me quickly say that I already have my N64 up here, my second system is always reserved to be my Playstation 2, and there is no way I’m bringing up more than 2 systems for my temporary home…..no, just not going to happen.

For anyone wondering about my Wii, as I’ve explained in past entries, my Wii is currently being sent in for repairs to have the lens reader fixed (or readjusted). I’ve been having problems with my system reading certain games, specifically my Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii discs. I haven’t physically sent in the system yet, but I will this weekend when I go home. All I’ve done at this point is call customer support so I know at least what to do, but it will be under way soon.

For those who continue to wonder about CrystalStarStudio and the future of the co-op channel, the only thing I’m going to ask you guys is to continue to remain patient with me (and us) as we try to figure out a few things. Believe it or not, we have actually run into some difficulty at this point, a difficulty that will probably delay things even more (if me not having my Wii wasn’t enough). However, I promise that we will try to figure things out as soon as possible so we can go back to creating videos for you wonderful people.

I think that’s all I’m going to talk about for this entry. I know I promised a GotW this week, but the lateness behind this entry kind of prevented that from being made. I do have a candidate in mind though for next week, so hopefully next weekend’s entry doesn’t get delayed. -_-

Anyways, I’ll see you guys later, whether it’s in my next video upload, or my next entry! Later folks!

- SlimKirby

9/12/10 - September Blandness

2010-09-12T19:17:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another exciting blog entry! Let’s see if I can actually get this entry up before the clock strikes midnight (my time). Anyways, not much to really report on this week from the life of SlimKirby….nothing that would be worth mentioning. Although I guess I should mention that I did sign up for a twitter account, for those who would be THAT interested in following what I’m doing during the course of the week. Don’t expect there to be any extra or important information exclusively on the twitter account though. It’s really just something new I feel like experimenting with. Anyways, the link is as follows:

http://www.twitter.com/slimkirby

Besides that though, as I said previously, there is not much really to report on.

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Youtube:

Let’s Play Donkey Kong 64

Although the project starts tomorrow, I don’t think there is really any harm in talking about it. I recorded the first 5 (or 4 1/2 if I decide to add more to the somewhat short 5th video) episodes at this point, and at this point, I think they came out ok. The only way I could really describe them is that, if you like the majority of my videos, or rather, the style I do my videos in, you should feel right at home. Definitely expect the first batch of videos to be a bit informative though, just because the nature of them.

I have to say though, doing these episodes of Donkey Kong 64 has gotten me thinking about a few things, a few things that I’m sure some of you (although, maybe not) would be surprised by. For one, I’m really not as confident with my ability to do commentary as many people would probably think. I mean, I can sit down and do it no problem, but watching it back, I always seem to get the feeling that I could do so much more with it. Maybe it’s just because it’s hard for anybody to listen or watch themselves, but still, I’ve never really been able to move past that confidence barrier, even after almost 2 ½ years of doing commentary. Maybe it’s just something you never really get over? Meh, I dunno, but I do know for sure that I’ll never let that discourage me from continuing what I do, so don’t worry about that if you think I’m getting tired of doing LPs, because I’m definitely not. It’s just more of a mental thing.

Anyways, getting back to the actual project, this should definitely be a lot of fun. I’m very much looking forward to kicking this game’s butt and having fun with it too. I’ve already started to plan my routes throughout each level, which I know probably seems a bit unnecessary, but I’m actually challenging myself to get this done in as few videos as possible without making any extravagant cuts. At this point, I see less than 70 videos as a very distinct possibility. My original project was about 84 videos, and that was with the old time limit. Adding 4 to each video will definitely make this project go a lot faster considering that the equivalent of 3 videos now is 4 with the old time limit. Maybe I should have project video # ending predictions? :O

Anyways, as usual, I hope you guys enjoy the project. I’m not sure when or if I will have a secondary project right away or not, but it’s something I may consider. It would be nice if I actually got my Wii back first though, because there is something I have on my Wii that I have considered LPing……what that game is? You will have to find out later. ;)

CrystalStarStudio:

Well, I have some good news….me and the guys at CSS have finally discussed some future plans. Not in very great detail, but enough to know what we might be doing next besides TTYD extras. As usual though, can’t really give you any information besides that….sorry. =(

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I’m actually going to end the entry here actually. I know this is kind of a short entry and there is no Game of the Week, but I did say a few weeks back that I am going to try and make the GotWs less frequent because I won’t have as much time during the week to play games anymore now that I am back in school (besides my Youtube projects of course), and sure enough, I didn’t really play any new games (that haven’t already been GotWs) this week, so that is pretty much an excuse in itself not to update.

I’ll try to have a much larger entry next week and hopefully I can have an exciting week for a change so I can actually have things to talk about. =P

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

9/6/10 - Happy Labor Day! =)

2010-09-06T01:03:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

I hope you guys have a great Labor Day! I'm not sure how it works for every person in the world, but in the case of me and the majority of the people I know, there are no classes today, so I had a nice little small vacation this weekend. Given, it was only 3 days, but still, some times even one extra day can be a lot.

Anyways, first off I once again apologize for the lateness of this entry. I didn't really have a very productive Sunday and didn't really get anything done. I guess I've truly underestimated how much my new schedule has been wearing me out that I just crashed at a very inopportune time. Oh well, it's something to get used to, I guess. Basically with the way I have things going on now, I can stay up as late as I want most days, however, some days I have classes at 9 in the morning (which is early for most college students), and staying up late doesn't usually help me for those. However, since I'm so used to my late schedule, I end up staying late anyways which means I usually don't get much sleep for those early class days, and as far as naps go, you can only take a nap in the middle of the day for so long before you just can't stand to lie down anymore. So basically, I have definitely lost some sleep over the last few days...thankfully though, not too much sleep. I'm still getting things done and not falling behind on really anything, so I guess that's the important thing.

Speaking of classes, things actually went a bit better this week than last. I might actually enjoy this semester a lot more than my past semesters, believe it or not. I guess I was just too focused on the work load that I forgot that the work really wasn't that bad. Plus, I have plenty of outside time to do it in as well, so I really had nothing to complain about. It's also kind of cool because one of my professors is actually a gamer and I'm thinking about telling him about what I do on Youtube. I'm not sure if there are any other Computer Science majors out there (besides those who I already know), but if you are, he's the kind of teacher who is really into technology and really enthusiastic about his work, so I think that class will have a lot of fun times this semester.

In other news, I got The Simpsons Season 13 on DVD and Metroid: Other M on Friday (although the latter I haven't touched, nor will I probably touch for a few weeks (since I am sending my Wii in for repairs). So far, I'm actually enjoying season 13 quite a bit. There have been a lot of my favorite episodes, and I think it's probably the season right before the series started to go downhill a bit (granted, I've never really thought the series got that much worse, but I think it can be argued that the older episodes are definitely better than the newer ones). But besides that, not much new going on the real life world of SlimKirby.

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Youtube:

I really don't have much to say either just because I said pretty much all I wanted to say last weekend, and I won't have any videos this next week, nor will CSS. I am very much looking forward to starting Donkey Kong 64 though. I haven't been this excited about starting a project since Kirby Super Star. Not that I haven't been excited about anything else I've done since then, I just really want to do this particular project so I can make it better than the first one I did and do the game justice. The first video of that will be going up on next Monday, so look forward to that on the 13th of September.

I've been wondering though if I should start doing...not really shout-outs, but basic run-downs what others have been doing and what I think of their projects, but the problem there is that it would be too restricted. I have a lot of LPers I try to keep up with, and I'm sure there are plenty out there who will want me to add them and....yeah, probably not a good idea in the long run. Maybe if I keep it restricted to community members of the Blargg Pit and CrystalStarStudio (since this blog is directly related to the site and CSS), but I dunno, that almost seems too selective to me. I guess it's something I could consider though.

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Game Discusssion:

There will be no Game of the Week this week because MadameWario stole all of my attention away, so this section will not added.

Ok, not really! =P

Madame herself actually suggested I put that since I couldn't really think about anything to talk about and I'm really trying to get this done. Although, the statement is kind of true though as she does distract me quite a bit already......but in a good way. =P

Anyways, today I was actually considering talking about my first thoughts and impressions on Metroid: Other M (as I mentioned earlier, I did buy it this weekend), but because I didn't play it and because I won't be playing it for awhile due to my Wii not being available, I can't really do that anymore. I guess I could talk about it for a little bit though, based on what I expect from the game based on what I have seen thus far and from what I have heard from other people.

Basically, some of the things I've heard and predicted are that the game is 1) kind of a combination of Super Metroid and Metroid Prime, specifically with the 1st person and 3rd person switches, and 2) is really centered on the storyline and character development. Basically, consider those two the main topics from my brief discussion.

First off, I will say that I'm one of those individuals who really fell in love with Super Metroid for the SNES, but never really got into the Prime series. While I think Metroid Prime is a very well-made game/series, I myself couldn't really get into the gameplay as much. I still acknowledge it though as one of the best Gamecube games, even though it's not up there on my personal preferences list. I do think the change from 2D side-scroller to 1st person shooter was needed, or rather, bound to happen, and I think Prime succeeded with that. As for Other M, where you pretty much switch between those perspectives, I'm not really sure.....although I do see how it could work and work well, but with that, I could also sense some faults as well purely from the game's controls and how they are set up. Keep in mind, I haven't played the game yet, so I really don't know how things actually are, and am purely basing this on assumption. Either way though, from what I have seen the gameplay looks pretty sweet and I am really looking forward to giving it a spin.

Another thing that I have heard a lot about, mostly from my friends though who only go by specific reviews and always assume things rather than experience them for themselves, is that Other M has quite a bit of focus on story and character development, something that hasn't really been shown very much in the series (at least on this level). Now, if you are my friends, you'd be saying that this is an awful thing and that it ruins the character of Samus because she is normally portrayed as a silent badass bounty hunter who goes out and kicks ass. I for one am a little more open than that. I do think it's a bit out of character for Samus, but does that mean it's going to be a bad game because of that? I don't think so. Besides, game developers can't exactly win with mass crowds anyways. There will always be a lot of people who complain about a game changing too much, or a lot of people who complain about the game not being unique or different enough. Those are just the facts of video games....there is no arguing side that is right, and the sooner people learn that the better. Unfortunately we live in a world where people don't like to compromise their opinions to be opinions...they see their opinions as facts and won't stand for anything else. Anyways, I kind of went on a little tangent right there, so allow me to go back to the main point. I'm actually quite interested to see how the story actually stacks up for me. Story has never really been a determining factor for me, especially considering my favorite video games are games where the storyline is basically "princess gets captured, hero saves princess." I am and have always been a gameplay guy, and right now I think that's where Other M is going to be judged on most. As long as they don't screw it up so much that it makes the game unplayable, I don't think story is going to be that big of an issue, even if it ends up being odd. Still though, it's interesting to think about. I'm hoping that The MBD ends up taking control of the universe. =P

My prospects are high, but how will they be at the end? I guess we will have to wait until I actually play the game (which again, won't be for awhile). The only thing I ask is that you don't give me any spoilers because I want to experience the game for myself. I also apologize for no Game of the Week this week either, but I didn't really play anything besides what I played already for Youtube. There will be one next week though, I promise!

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Anyways, that's about it for this entry. Sorry if it was kind of on the short side, but I'm on 3-day vacation, give me a break! :P

Later folks!

- SlimKirby

8/29/10 - Back to Work....Unfortunately

2010-08-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, welcome to another week of….blogginess? Anyways, lots of things happening this week in the world of SlimKirby, so I’m going to make this entry kind of expeditious. This past week I started my Fall semester of classes, so as you can probably tell, I’ve been pretty busy with that. I swear, for a beginning week of classes, I’ve gotten a lot more work than I should have, but I guess that’s to be expected with the higher level classes. Overall though, I guess it is just something I will have to work with. I’ve done pretty well with my classes through the last 3 years. I’ll just have to step it up a notch. As for my classes interfering with any of my recording time, it really shouldn’t be that bad. I actually have quite a bit of free time considering the difficulty of my classes. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I have nothing until 3 PM and I’m done at 6:15, and because of that late start, on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, I can stay up quite late. I wouldn’t say it was the best result in the world in terms of how my schedule could have gone, but it could’ve been worse.

Besides that, there is not much to report on…just hard work in general.

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Youtube

Majora’s Mask – Well, the main part of the project is over, and dammit, I can’t believe it. It seems like I just started, yet it’s been almost 3 months and now it’s finishing. On the whole though, it was a great project and I’m glad I decided to embark on it. Would I say it’s been my best project? Well, I think it would definitely be a candidate, although I still have a lot of pride in my Hit and Run Let’s Play. Either way, it was a lot of fun, I’m glad I decided to work on it. Extras videos will start coming out in the middle of this week, and will probably be over by the weekend.

PilotWings 64 – Like Majora’s Mask, I also finished the main part of this project as well. Like Majora’s Mask, I also had a lot of fun with this project, despite the limited amount of entertainment a game like would normally get, and I thought it turned out pretty well. I think one of the greatest feelings I get from doing the work I do on Youtube is getting people interested in games that normally may have not been heard of before. That is definitely one of the goals I try to make with my Youtube, especially the more unnoticed games I play. Anyways, enough about that…..I’ve already uploaded some of the extra videos today, and the rest will be up tomorrow, so no more PilotWings after tomorrow.

Donkey Kong 64 – Yesterday I announced in an update video that a replay of Donkey Kong 64 would be my next project. I’m really getting pumped for this replay just because Donkey Kong 64 has always been a personal favorite of mine, and I actually have a lot of history with the game, some of which I’ll definitely reveal during my playthrough. I’m hoping this project will be a lot shorter than the original (especially with the new Youtube time limit), and I can already guarantee better video quality and commentary. Anyways, look forward to this project in September.

CrystalStarStudio – Still not setting anything in stone just yet, but I’ll (or rather, we’ll) probably have some information soon.

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Game of the Week:

Note: There is one thing I would like to keep in mind in regards to this edition of GotW and all future editions. This is not necessarily a review here, despite me writing it like one. When doing these issues, I try to focus on personal experience rather than nitpicking all of the different aspects of each game. If I wanted to write reviews like that, I would write them for a website or something. The only thing “reviewish” I would like to keep consistent is the scoring thing, besides that though, don’t be surprised if I don’t talk about every little thing.

Pokemon (1st Generation)

During this past week, I very randomly decided to pick up my old Pokemon Red Version game pack, and since it’s the only game I’ve played this week that hasn’t been one of the projects I’m currently doing, I suppose that it makes this game a candidate.

What can I say about the 1st generation of Pokemon? Like for many, this game took me on a very unforgettable adventure throughout the world of Kanto, capturing Pokemon and gaining gym badges to become best Pokemon trainer in the land. It was all the rage back in the late 90s, and has kept pretty consistent in the recent years as well. The success of this craze is no-doubt attributed to the first games, which are perhaps my all-time favorites.

Sure, when looking back at the first gen games, they seem inferior to the later games, and my favoritism could be merely for nostalgic reasons, but is there really anything wrong with that? Even if you do go back to these games, after spending years upon years with the new additions and changes to the series, going back to the old games can still be a lot of fun. In fact, a few years ago, my friends and I actually came up with a Pokemon tournament idea where we would revisit our old games with new files and a new adventure, and after a few months had passed, we’d have our own competitions with our Pokemon. We had so much fun with that, even though we never really finished (some of us got way too far ahead with our Pokemon levels, the level cap we set was too high, and many of the people actually dropped out after awhile). This shows that the old games still have quite a bit of charm left in them, even if you had to deal with a lot of the outdatedness of some of the game concepts.

As for my current file, I really just started out of current boredom. I’m not really sure if it’s something I’ll try to completely finish or not, as I have gotten all 150 on the first gen before. And as rewarding as that was back in the day….now it just doesn’t seem like it’s something I’m 100% set on. It will definitely be something that I might go to though whenever I get bored.

Giving this game a review score is actually pretty difficult, for a variety of different reasons. I would like to give it a score based on how it was back in the day, because of how easy it is to stack the game in comparison with the newer generations, yet on the other hand, you really don’t want to blind it by nostalgia either. For it’s time though, and for its enjoyment in recent years, I think I can feel pretty confident with a 4.5/5.

LP Possibility: SlimKirby! Would you ever Let’s Play a Pokemon game? I will admit, I have thought about it, and I have determined that sometime in the future, I would like to do one, but now is just not the time. The problem with Pokemon is that there are already so many different Pokemon LPs and LPers already, and all of the major games and different versions have already been hit multiple times. Not that I am completely against doing games that have been done before, but still, I think it would be kind of difficult to keep the playthrough unique and interesting……in my opinion at least. With an overdone game like Majora’s Mask, I thought I could at least keep it interesting from my knowledge of playing the game multiple times when I was younger, and not really getting that feeling from other LPs of the game. Oh well, I suppose Pokemon is always a possibility for the future….just not now.

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Well, that is about it for this entry this week…and how appropriate, just when “Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder” ended. I guess that means that it is about time to go to bed! Later folks!

- SlimKirby

8/23/10 - Back to an Old, But Still Somewhat New Routine

2010-08-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, reporting from Muncie, Indiana, my 2nd home. Yes that is correct, as mentioned last week, I am back at my college university for another exciting year of advanced education classes and all the drama that is college dorm life. I got back to my dorm last night in the early evening, and as far as I know, everything seems to have made it up here all right, so I was able to settle in pretty quickly. And with my first classes not starting until 3 PM today, I was actually able to stay up pretty late without the worry of missing any of my classes. Missing classes is not something I normally do (unless I know I don't need to be there and if I can get away with not going), but it has happened once thanks to my ability to randomly zone out my alarm clock (was able to sleep through 40 minutes of loud alarm beeping once). Either way, I got up at around 10 AM this morning, after staying up til about 3:30 last night. I know it's probably not very smart to get such little sleep on an important day like today, or stay up so late the night before, but I have my reasons (;]), and I feel pretty awake right now regardless. Besides, it's difficult to get sleep on that first night, just because of how different it is. You've pretty much spent the last 3 or 4 months sleeping in the same bed and in the same environment, and then you randomly switch to a small room in a big building with hundreds of other people living around you, only separated by walls that don't always minimize noises. It's a pretty unique experience. :P

With that aside though, I'm not really sure what to make of this semester or this school year. I think I will really need to start focusing on what I'm doing (not that I don't focus, but I mean "REALLY FOCUS") and not try not to get lost in the drama that is my life and everything else around me. I will still try my best to stay active on Youtube, but try to understand that I can't really guarantee what my updating will be like. I actually got kind of lucky last year with so many open windows of opportunity to do recording, editing, and that kind of stuff. This year, I'm honestly not that sure. I'm hoping the 22-hour downtime between my last classes on on Tuesday and Thursday, and my first classes on Wednesday and Friday (plus the weekend of course) will give me plenty of opportunities, but who knows? I may actually need that time. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens, yes?

Also, I do apologize for the lateness of this entry. I actually meant to do this pretty early on Sunday, but I felt dead tired and kind of sick to my stomach, so I wanted to use that time to take a nap and get well rested before I had to make the nerve-wracking trip back to my university. And then, by the time I got back, I was really in no mood to work on it, so I put it off until Monday afternoon. I will try to keep these Sunday - Monday postponements to a minimum from now on, but I never really know what to expect with my schedule.

Anyways, let's talk about other stuff! =D

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Youtube:

Majora's Mask: I can't believe we are near the end of this project. At the time of writing this entry, the rest of the game has been recorded, and the rest of the videos will be uploaded periodically throughout this week. In the end, the project ended up being 74 videos (again, this is not counting the extras). That number is pretty much what I expected in the beginning and I have no regrets with it taking this long. I mean, to be fair, Majora is a pretty long damn game, and there is so much more you have to do if you want a 100% playthrough. I honestly don't think you would see very many people do that much better with less (in terms of video #s) than what I did (although with the 15 minute time limit, that's not necessarily true now). I actually had a lot of stuff planned out before I recorded so I knew what exactly I would be doing, step by step. There was rarely a time where I was literally doing nothing, and whenever I did have a time like that, I usually spent it on rupee grinding or getting situated for the next thing I had to do. I think in efficiency, I did a really good job. The only thing I will admit is that my organization was probably a little weird, however, that is what I chose to do in my Let's Play, so it was really my call in the end.

I still need to film the extra videos at this time, not mention, figure out what I am even going to put in the extra videos. I have lots of things written down though, and I'm sure my viewers will probably have quite a bit to remind me of when it comes to the final video, with their "Will you show this?" and "Please show this!" comments. Plus, I also have the entire Let's Play to look through and see if there would be anything worth showing based on similar comments I've gotten throughout. It'll more than likely be an annoying process to plan out, but that's kind of what I signed up for.....

PilotWings 64: The main part of Pilot Wings 64 should actually be finishing up pretty soon as well. Today I will be posting Part 7, and on one of the days for this week, I will post Part 8 as well, which will include the final main mission and the credits. Overall, it's been a nice project to work on, and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from the LP as well, so I'm glad there are people who are actively enjoying the game for what it is. I actually got a comment on yesterday's video, which actually made me smile a bit; "I don't like this game, but you are really doing a great job with the project." Now, I guess that doesn't really do the game any justice, but one of the goals I kinda had for this Let's Play was that I wanted to show that even the most dull-sounding and dull-looking of games can be enjoyable to watch and/or play, or at least that was bet with ShadowMario41 (since one of the reasons why I LPed this game was because he said it was a terrible game and I wanted to prove him wrong =)). Although, when looking back at the comment, I guess it's moreso favoring the commentary and the project itself rather than the actual game (which I guess is good thing in its own right, considering how little faith I have in my audio commentaries). Either way, I think the project has been going pretty well regardless and I'm happy to see there are some people out there who are enjoying it for what it is.

Like Majora, I also have extras for this project as well. I'd say there will be about 3 videos worth of extras (since I have to cover all of the side games and all of their levels. I still have to film them as well, but they will also be posted throughout the coming week (not this week, since I still have to finish the main part of the project).

CyrstalStarStudio: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is finished....sans extras. It was a long road of 92 videos, me being responsible for the majority of the last 18 or so, but we have most certainly finished. Now, the other members of CSS and I are looking to have a nice break from the action and drama, but I assure you guys that we will be back again soon (once we figure out what we are going to do next).

New Project in September: I will be revealing my project in an update video I have planned for this coming Saturday, but just be aware of the fact, for the current time, that my next LP is decided. =)

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Game of the Week:

This week's GOTW is going to be treated a little bit differently from all the others. Usually when I do GOTWs, they are games that I haven't LPed on my channel before. However, I'm going to bend the rules a little bit and talk about a game I have LPed before...twice actually. The only difference between this entry, in contrast with others, is that instead of talking about the possibility of LPing it (since I have already LPed it), is that I will give my thoughts on that project, looking back on it, and comparing it with my current projects.

Mario Party

I can't stress how important Mario Party has been to my channel over these last few years. It has easily become perhaps the series I am most known for doing and has been the source of many of my best moments throughout my entire Youtube longevity. For those who don't know what Mario Party is, it's basically a mash-up of a classic board game, lots and lots of mini-games, and the whackiness that is the Mario universe. Since the release of the first game back in 1999, Hudsonsoft, the developer of the series, has released 9 other games (7 console, 2 handheld) into the series, but many argue the first is where most of the magic happens and where the magic has remained for the last 11 years.

I'm not going to talk about the gameplay mechanics or any of that stuff as I've been through that a number of times in my many Mario Party projects. Besides, I'm willing to bet the majority of my readers come from my channel and are already aware of the Mario Party madness that ensues there, so I probably don't need to go into very much detail. One thing you can say about this Mario Party game though, in comparison with the rest, is because this is the first game in the series, you can generally expect it to be a bit more tame when looking at the rest. And for the most part, that is true. A lot of the mini-games are pretty easy to follow and have very simple premises, and this was also before the series got crazy with the item system. You can almost look at the straight-forwardness of this game to be a very distinct advantage. Most of the complaints that are given in future titles are that the games end up being way too random and luck-based, and having the right item could potentially bring the game in your favor. In this game, pretty much what you see, is what you get, and your plan of attack is going to be pretty obvious; win as many mini-games as you can, and get as many coins as possible so you can buy stars and afford board events. However, that doesn't necessarily mean, that luck will always be on your side, quite the contrary. You will still have to be prepared for anything, whether it's an annoying happening space event or if your opponents plan to gang up on you and steal your stuff. However, besides that though, it's pretty straightforward and I think that's why people tend to prefer that game to others. I personally think Mario Party 2 is the best, just because the item system in that game was fair and not off-the-hook, plus it had some of the best mini-games. Mario Party 1 still pretty much set the standard though.

The reason why this game was chosen as Game of the Week is that I actually went back through the game recently just for old times sake and did another playthrough of all 8 boards. In my recorded project, I had a Win-Loss record of 6-2 (losing at DK's Jungle Adventure and Mario's Rainbow Castle, both ironically 1 star difficulty boards X_X), but in this playthrough, I actually managed to pull of a perfect 8-0 record! You see, I told you guys that I don't suck as much when I'm not recording. I guess when the camera turns on, the atmosphere changes. :P A lot of the boards in this playthrough pretty much went down in the same exact way; 1) I get a bunch of coins from mini-games and from not stupidly spending them and 2) Later use those coins to pretty much dominate the rest of the game. I also managed to get quite lucky with the chance times (something that doesn't happen very often for me), which actually helped me pull out a very late victory after getting screwed so hard by the stupid luck factor of Yoshi's Tropical Island. Another close call was Bowser's Magma Mountain, a board that literally decided to give me warp blocks at the worst possible times, whenever I was right next to the star. However, once I finally made it to Boo on the second to last turn, I had way more than enough coins to steal what I needed to gain victory. I also had perhaps the least efficient playthrough of Eternal Star ever, with one of the stars on the first set of 7 not being gotten throughout the entire 35 turn game (since you are originally given 7 star spaces at the beginning, and once you get all 7, they will create 7 more). It was a pretty interesting ride with a pretty nice result, and I'm glad I decided to play through this classic gem of a game again.

Mario Party definitely set the standard for all future Mario Party and board games to come. I think it's far from a perfect game, but it excels in perhaps the most important department, pure fun and entertainment. I think because of that, it's appropriate to give this game a 4.5/5 on the SlimKirby scale. :P

Original Playthrough: And by original playthrough, I mean the playthrough that is CURRENTLY on my channel, not the bad camcordered version I did back in 2007 that doesn't even exist anymore. All in all, I think it was a good project, despite its problems. The main issue with the recorded project is that I brilliantly (sarcasm) decided to not fix the audio desync issue I had until near the end of the project, making some of the playthroughs kind of awkward. I mean, when you hear my reaction to something before it actually happens, that kind of takes away from the experience a little bit, and because of that, I do kind of apologize to my viewers if that annoyed anyone. However, this was still a fairly early project of mine, and I was still learning. :P I think just because it is Mario Party 1, I probably won't need to redo it (especially since I've technically already redone it already), just because it is technically the first of the series, and it's understandable that there would be some problems. If anything, the only MP projects I should even consider redoing are 3 and 4, and even that is a stretch. Overall though, it was a great project and experience, and I'm glad the success of it has carried throughout my channel.

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That's about it for this entry! I'll see you guys next week for some more fun and excitement. Later folks!

- SlimKirby

8/15/10 - Things Will Soon Be Going Down!

2010-08-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

Once again, another week has passed, which means I will once again deliver a giant pile of text to you guys. You know, it seems like just a few weeks ago I was excited to be out of classes for the summer. Little do I realize now that it has actually been 3 ½ months now, which means that I only have one week before I go back to the old grind. It’s kind of disappointing, to say the least, but at least the ride has been a bit more enjoyable this time around. I’ve seen old friends, gone on trips, spent quite a bit of time with family, embarked on some interesting experiences, and have met some new people and friends. Basically…..it’s been the best summer vacation since I’ve been at college. =P

Anyways, this past week has brought something “interesting events” to say the least. I actually got the pleasure to meet fellow Youtube user and CSS partner PowerToMario in person last Tuesday for breakfast. He was in the area this past week during a little family expedition of his, and we arranged a little meeting as he was en route back to his home base in Floridaland. The meeting itself was kind of awkward at first (keep in mind, this was our first face-to-face meeting, and regardless of the 3 thousand times we’ve talked before online, it’s a lot different in person), but in the end, it went well and was pretty cool. PTM is a really genuine person and a really nice guy. He can be a bit of a jokester at times (and sometimes, not in a good way =P), but in the end, aren’t we all? Either way, if you are reading this, it was great meeting you buddy, and take care! And also, good luck in your first year of college! Make all of CSS proud!

Besides that though, it was actually a pretty boring week. It was the kind of week where it really starts to hit you that something big is coming up (for me, moving back into dorm life again and starting classes), and you aren’t really motivated to do anything but just focus on that upcoming event. I really hate when I let that happen because I always feel like I have something else to do, and I just shouldn’t have the time to stare at my Simpsons character poster and name as many characters as I can. I feel I must at least give thanks though to the Blargg Pit chatroom for at least making things interesting in those late after-hours that take place in my daily life after I spend most of my day doing work around the house, recording and editing videos, or even both. Not only do they give me a great deal of support for what I do, but they are a lot fun to chat and hang out with. We’ve seriously got some great people in that community, and if any of you guys or gals are reading, just letting you know how fantastic you have been.

But, enough ranting about that…let’s move on to something else!

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Youtube:

Majora’s Mask – The other day, (Friday to be exact) I finished recording another set of videos which consisted of the entirety of Stone Tower Temple, and pretty much all of the extra stuff outside of Clock Town. The end of this project is so freaking close, I can almost taste it. All I have to do right now is finish finalizing those videos and I could pretty much just film the rest of the game. However, I would like to do something special with the big thing I will be covering the following cycle, so I might devote a little time to that. Either way though, predict Majora to end somewhere around the Video #80 mark.

PilotWings 64 – The reception of this project has been nothing outstanding, but the response has been incredible for what it is, and definitely not what I expected. I knew walking into this game that I was taking a big risk with the interest of my fans, but that risk has actually been paying off so far. It will definitely be a short project, but maybe the best mini-project I have done thus far.

CrystalStarStudio – Paper: Mario The Thousand-Year Door is almost complete and will actually be completely finished by the next blog entry. Only 4 videos remain of the project, and I will be uploading twice on Friday, so the project will officially end on August 20th. It’s been a fun ride with this game, but the rest of CSS and I are ready to put this project to rest, or at least the main part of the project.

New Projects: People have already started to wonder what exactly I will have planned for the months following Majora’s Mask, and I will tell you guys that I have given it a lot of thought. I wouldn’t say I have a full grasp on what I’m going to do or when, but I have a plethora of ideas in mind, and it will basically come down to what I feel like doing when the time approaches. I will say that I do have my next Let’s Play decided at this point (after Majora and Pilotwings) and I will be announcing it very soon.

15,000 Subscribers: Wow, when summer vacation started for me, I didn’t even have 10,000 yet, and I managed to pick up 5,000 more in only a period of 3 months. I really have to give you guys a lot of thanks for that. I’m glad you are enjoying my videos and I’ve glad you have been very supportive of me and my work for so long. Since 1,000 milestones don’t seem as big anymore, I probably won’t be planning a special for this particular milestone, but I did want to take note of it just because of how swiftly I obtained it. Thanks again guys!

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There will not be a Game of the Week this week mostly because….I haven’t played any games….. seriously. Normally when I do a GotW, I choose a game that I had been playing recently or randomly decided to pick up and play again just for the hell of it, but no major candidates come to mind. I’ll definitely have a GotW planned for the next entry, but for this one, I’m afraid I’m going to run empty on you guys. Although, with classes quickly approaching again, my time for gaming will continue to diminish, so maybe GotW will have to turn into Game of the Month, or something…

Well, since there is no Game of the Week, I guess that means I’m going to call it quits for this entry. I’ll see guys next time. I’m not sure if “next time” will be next weekend though, just because I will have a lot going on next Sunday, but surely I’ll be able to find some time to write something. I guess we’ll just wait and see…

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

8/9/10 - I Hate Being Late

2010-08-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to my Sunday blog update! *looks at calendar and sees that it is Monday* oh crap….

Yes, once again I had a bit of an issue with timing for this blog, but this time, I literally forgot about it. Usually when my updates are late, I at least have them somewhat written already, or have the blog in the back of my mind throughout the entire day. This time, I was literally in bed trying to get to sleep when I realized that I forgot. Oh well, it’s something I can get done while I’m waiting for my videos to upload today.

So, there is not much to really catch you guys up on in my real life. I can’t believe in only just two weeks I’ll be back in school for my 4th year of college classes. I’m honestly not completely sure how to feel about that, but it needs to be done, I guess.

One thing that might be worth mentioning is that I may actually be meeting up with Youtube user and fellow CSS member PowerToMario tomorrow, which will be the first time I’ve seen a fellow CSS member face-to-face. Tonight we still need to discuss some details (like, where we will be meeting, and so on), but it’s completely plausible. I guess we’ll see how that goes (if it does) and then I might have to talk about it next week. There is also the possibility of meeting up with MadameWario as well (since she also lives in the area), but I’m not sure how much information she has gotten about this. Again, I guess we will see what happens.

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Youtube Stuff:

Majora’s Mask seems to keep on going, and going, and going, and going, and going (not that I expected anything else). Although, it is comforting to know that I am approaching the end of the wire. In terms of video numbers, I’d still expect around 75 or 80 overall (for the main project anyways), but I think the only thing I can say for certain right now is that it will definitely not go over 100. Maybe if my time limit was still 11 minutes, it might be, but even then I have my doubts. The new 15-minute time limit has done wonders for this project, it really has.

Also, for anybody still in the dark, I actually started a new project yesterday, Let’s Play PilotWings 64. And the reception I got from the first video was actually kind of surprising. I got a few “What the F is this?” comments like I expected, but the feedback was mostly positive and there seems to be a lot of interest despite the type of game it is, which is what I was hoping for. It’s good to know that people are willing to give the project and the game a chance, because you never know what you are going to like. I for one, never would expect, as a child, that I would end up enjoying a game where you fly around with different air vehicles and try to do simple tasks like fly through rings and pop balloons, but then Pilotwings 64 showed up. As mentioned before, this project will only be updated on a “When I want to” basis, so I can’t really say when certain updates will occur. I am going to try and record the entire project before I go back to college though.

For CrystalStarStudio, we are currently in the process of uploading Chapter 8 videos. Because there have been so many trips and wisdom teeth removals as of late, getting together for commentary has been hard, but that’s why we recorded 6 videos last weekend (even though it was a pain getting everyone together, but I won’t get into that now). We just have to record 4 more videos, and the project should actually be finished by the end of next week, surprisingly. Then we have to decide what else we are going to do. =P

Also, as some of you might be wondering (I have gotten a few PMs about it already), I was actually a director of the new cooperative NinBuzz channel for a short period of 12 hours. For those who are unaware, Ninbuzz is basically a cooperative channel that is hoping to get an elite group of Youtube gamers together in order to create a haven of Nintendo goodness on one Youtube channel, and I actually got an invitation to be a part of it. Originally, I accepted the invitation, but decided against it after thinking about it for a little while. A reason for this is just because I have so much on my plate already, and adding a 3rd channel to which I submit stuff would not help those matters in the slightest. Another reason is that I would be working with complete strangers and people who I don’t know very well. With CrystalStarStudio, it’s different because I’ve known these guys for 2-4 years now and I actually trust them. NintendoCapriSun, who is one of the channel directors for Ninbuzz, while he seems like a nice, down-to-earth guy, doesn’t change the fact that I really have no idea who he even is as a person (besides the personality he shows in his videos). There are also a few other reasons to why I declined, but they are more personal and are reasons I don’t really feel comfortable with bringing up in a public blog. In the end though, if this channel is for real and if it’s legit (NO CHEATS), I wish the directors of NinBuzz good luck in their endeavors.

That’s really all I have to say about Youtube stuff for now. Next week, as we get closer and closer to the end of Majora’s Mask, I might start bringing up some possibilities of future projects and things I might start doing for the fall season. I’m not going to make any major promises or guarantees that I will reveal a whole lot, but I will try to spend some time talking about it.

Also, I’m not going to be posting the video schedule for the following week like I have done in past entries. The way I see it, I only have two projects, one of which is updated daily and the other of which is updated whenever I want it to be updated, so there really doesn’t seem to be a purpose to post the schedule when half of it is pretty much something you can expect on a daily basis, and the other half is random.

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Game of the Week

I actually haven’t done a GotW for awhile, but now it is time. This time I will be talking about a game I’ve gotten and completed recently.

Kirby: Squeak Squad (Mouse Attack)

Oh Kirby, Kirby, Kirby…..you are such a pimp (pimp? Oh dear, I guess I have been spending too much time chatting with MadameWario that I’m using her words now XD). Anyways, it’s actually been quite awhile since Kirby’s last ORIGINAL (so Super Star Ultra doesn’t count) platforming adventure, and with the announcement of Epic Yarn during the last E3, I felt it was time to go back and actually give Squeak Squad a try, since I actually haven’t played it before. I got the game from a local gamestop a few weeks back and I’ve been casually playing through it these past few weeks, completing it just a few days ago.

The game itself is quite like any Kirby game you’ve already seen before numerous times. In this game, a group of intergalactic mice steal Kirby’s prized Strawberry shortcake (wait, what?), and Kirby’s goal is to re-obtain it along with collecting any other treasures he can find. Yeah, the story is kind of lame, but you can’t and really shouldn’t expect a “Final Fantasy-esque” storyline from a Kirby game. After all, it’s the gameplay that matters, right?

Right off the bat, when playing this game, I actually notice quite a few similarities to the Great Cave Offensive from Kirby Super Star. You can play the game straight through if you want, but you are going to be tempted to collect all of the different treasures you can find and that Kirby can get his cute, little, greedy hand-stubs on. As you would expect, getting all the treasures is an intuitive process, as they are not all in plain sight right in front of you. Sometimes you will have to hit switches or have a specific copy ability to obtain the treasure. However, if you thought Great Cave Offensive or getting all the crystal shards in Kirby 64 was challenging, it’s pretty much the exact opposite experience for this game. You really don’t have to do that much thinking in order to obtain any treasure. Usually if you need a power-up to get through an obstacle or hit a far-away switch, the power-up is 98% of the time in the same room you are in. And for other treasures, usually if you just explore every crevice, and every nook and cranny (nook’s tranny cranny….again, too much time with MadameWario XD), you’ll find the treasures pretty easily. I honestly did not really get that much of a challenge from this game, not that I was really expecting a Kaizo Mario World or anything, but it almost seemed like just a baby version of the Kirby games. It was still a lot of fun, just really easy.

Some of the new power-ups you can get in the game are actually pretty cool. In fact, I think one of my new favorite Kirby power-ups is Magic Kirby, a form where Kirby wears an awesome magician top-hat, and can send playing cards or magic white doves as projectiles. A lot of the old, classic Kirby power-ups are also in the game as well, including Beam, Fire, Ice, Sword, Wheel, and two of my Kirby Superstar favorites, Hammer and BOMB! I also thought the concept behind Metal Kirby was kind of cool, although I hated using it.

And as usual, after you beat the game, you can expect a lot of different features and extra games, which does give the game some extra replay value. I wouldn’t say it’s a lot of replay value, but if boss endurances or level times trials are your thing, it’s delivers in that area.

Overall, as I mentioned earlier, it’s a decent game and worth checking out if you are into the Kirby genre, but if you are looking for a DS Kirby game, Kirby Superstar Ultra is obviously the better deal in the long run. This game just felt a little too easy, and I thought it could have given just a bit more replay value. Overall, I would give it a 3 out of 5. It’s nothing terrible, but nothing extraordinary, just averagely good.

LP Possibility: If I could play DS games on a console, hell yes. But for now, hell no!

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And that’s about it for this blog entry! Again, I do apologize for the lateness, but I think this entry actually came out pretty well besides that, so hopefully that makes up for it. Before I go, there is one more thing I want to mention.

PowerToMario has also started a blog of his own, and is the 2nd CrystalStarStudio member to have one. I felt that since he is a part of the CSS gang, and is now the world of blogging, that I would give him and his blog a little plug, so here is a link to his blog if you want to check it out.

A Day in the Life

I think MegaFreak400 is also considering starting a blog of his own, so once he gets his first post up, I’ll probably give a plug to him as well.

Anyways, that’s about it for this week’s entry. See you guys next week where again, I will probably be late at updating. However, I have an excuse this time because I’ll be going on a small weekend trip to a place that has no Internet connection. I still should be able to get a post up on Sunday night though, but don’t be surprised if it’s late.

Later folks!

8/2/10 - Cutting it Short...

2010-08-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

I would say "Welcome back to another exciting entry," but this isn't exactly going to be my usual type of entry. For one, if you couldn't tell, this is being updated on Monday, so I'm already a bit late to the game, and unlike last time where I was working on it periodically through the course of the day, I didn't get anytime to work on it whatsoever (although I did try to, I just couldn't get any alone time with the laptop). Secondly, as much as I hate complaining about everything else I have to do along with this blog, this time it's just too much. Since my stream last Wednesday, let's just say I haven't had a day where I could just sit back and not worry about what I need to get done until today, and even then I'm not as ahead as I could be with Majora videos and I need to start filming my new project as well. When you put my Youtube stuff together with CrystalStarStudio, general updates on the Blargg Pit, Blargg Pit chat moderation, this blog, trivia contests and gaming night events (to attend, not control) and stuff I am expected to take care of in the real world....it's a lot of stuff. I'm surprised how much free time I normally get (which is normally not a lot).

However, with that being said, and with the blog probably being the least relevant of those things, it's still not something I want to give up. Deep down, I am actually a writer at heart, if my long history of being a, as I like to call myself, "message board junkie" doesn't show otherwise. For those not really understanding what I'm referring to, before I started doing Youtube videos, I was a very common visitor and sometimes poster of major video game message boards. The most prominent one was the Nintendo NSider Forums where I had over 75,000 posted messages, various Post of the Week awards, and hosted a variety of different contests and wrote a variety of different reviews as well. Anyways, my point is that during those days, I had an outlet where I could vent my ideas and post what I had on my mind. Now, I could technically still do that, but with the way I do my Let's Plays, the way that works for me is the informative game approach, where I put a lot of attention into the game I'm playing, because I feel that is the reason why people are watching the videos in the first place, not to find out how sad I am for the most recent celebrity death or for my opinion on who is going to win the next season of Hell's Kitchen. Now, every now and then, especially when it comes to the Mario Party projects, I try to put a little discussion out there just because it can help clear out some of the "uhhh.....uhhh....yeah, so uhh..." moments of my videos where I may not be saying anything relevant in the slightest, but even then, some of that can easily clash with my video standards, leading to such disasters as my E3 2010 rant (which I'm still probably being too hard on myself for, but leaving out details and certain explanations can really lead people into making swift judgments about another person, judgments that may be incorrect, but understandable as well based on the way I presented my discussion). So in a way, I try to use this blog as a way to talk about those things that I normally wouldn't be able to touch on as much or as well in my videos. The only problem is now the blog is slightly becoming a chore to do and I don't seem to have as many things to talk about as I normally would. It's a shame that this blog has to suffer because of that, but I'm doing my best to make sure I have something to share with you every week. It's just a shame I have to balance it along with everything else I'm doing...

Anyways, this entry is not going to be a very long entry, nor am I going to be using the format I've been using in my last few entries (so there will be no "Game of the Week" for this week). I'm just going to touch up on a few things, mostly involving Youtube stuff, and then call it an entry.

First off, as I'm sure many of you are wondering; I am going to be pushing my new project back a bit, because I just haven't really had anytime to film it. I'm going to try and get some episodes recorded this week, and hopefully I can get it out there by next Sunday, but we'll see what happens. Until then, just expect normal Majora's Mask updates.

CrystalStarStudio has started Chapter 8, and we are very thrilled to bring you guys the final chapter of the game. Expect the main part of the project to come to a close on August 20th. As for other parts of the game, we are still trying to decide what to do, so please keep questions about that to a minimum.

For the big Youtube issue that is currently going on (the false-flagging/suspension thing), as I said during my stream and past entries, don't let that bother you guys in the slightest. Users like chuggaaconroy have already started to return from their suspension (not sure what is taking NCS so long though), and things seem to have definitely slowed down if not stopped completely. It was all honestly just a matter of time before this lost steam, and as I said a few weeks ago, Youtube could only ignore the issue for so long. The only advice I have for you guys still worried about the situation, just try not to think about it so much, and keep in mind that if it does happen again (and happens to me for that matter) it will not be a permanent thing.

Finally, as for my stream last week, since I always tend to share my thoughts on the blog following the stream....I have to say I was kind of disappointed. However, this disappointment is not directed at just one source.....really all sources that played a factor including myself. I made some really bad decisions during the stream, and I really lacked direction with what I was doing, so in some parts, things got really hectic and probably a bit boring in other parts. I really want to thank my moderation staff though during this particular stream because they were on the ball in so many ways. Problems were taken care of, posts were being removed when they should have been, and they just did a great job overall, so thanks to MegaFreak400, GaiaCrusher9, K-Man, ShadowMario41, PowerToMario, darkmindedsith, Odinspack33, ShotzRox, RockedSolid, and the always lovely, and always fierce MadameWario. I'm glad you guys (and gal) were there to have my back. Anyways, with that being said, I don't think there are going to be that many more stream events for the rest of this summer. I originally had plans to host two more streams, and an all-day stream (like I do every summer), but I'm hesitant to do so. I would like to give it one more shot to see if maybe things will go a little smoother, but another issue is finding the time to host one. There will definitely be at least one more stream in the next month, but at this time, I can't tell you when.

That's about all I wanted to discuss for this entry. Next week I will try to return to my blog format. Later folks!

7/25/10 - So Much Recording, So Little Time

2010-07-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here and welcome to another exciting blog entry. You know….maybe I should use a different word than “exciting” because I never really get that excited when I make my blog, and I can’t imagine too many people getting excited about reading it either. Really, it’s just something to do every week. It’s not becoming an inconvenience or anything, as usually I can get through the entries pretty quickly (even with the Game of the Week section), but still, it’s quite a bit of writing…writing I require myself to do.

But enough about that, it’s getting late and I want to finish this before I have to postpone this to tomorrow morning again like last week. Things have actually been getting pretty hectic for me as of late, and that’s not generally the feeling you want for a summer vacation week. I know a few weeks ago I bitched about my cousins being around (well, not necessarily “bitching,” but you know…..airing my grievances so to speak). Well, since then, we’ve actually had a few more visits from them, plus visits from other relatives as well, so I haven’t exactly gotten the time to do much for myself besides filming editing (and even then I’m kind of behind). Again, as I’ve said many times, it’s not that I don’t love my family or anything like that, they’re just kind of hard to take in large doses for extremely lengthy periods of time, especially when the majority of them are younger than I am (I still remember when I was the youngest though =)). Now, it would be a lot different if they played the same type of games I played (big Wii fans across the family), that way I could show them the true power of my gaming skills. =D In the end though, there have mostly been positives, moreso than negatives, so I guess that is the important part.

Also in the past week, I managed to pick up some new old games from Game Stop. I picked up Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2 for the Gamecube, Kirby Squeak Squad, and The Simpsons Game. I wanted to give Monkey Ball a try because many of my friends have recommended the game for me to try, and from what I played, I’ve enjoyed it, but not to the extent I figured I would. Some of the levels are actually pretty difficult. Also, I’ve been having a lot of problem with Monkey Ball 1. Since it was a used game, I can barely go a few minutes without having a disc read error. Thankfully with the Gamecube, you can just take the game out and put it back in, but still, it’s annoying to get out of your chair just to do that….especially multiple times in the course of 10 or 20 minutes. I haven’t played very much of Squeak Squad, but it seems just like the typical fun Kirby game. As for the Simpsons Game, I’m already getting some mixed messages. On the whole, I love the idea of the game and some of the execution, but I’ve played many other and better platformers with much more polished controls. The controls are honestly kind of bad. However, still haven’t had that much time with my games since I have been so busy, but you may see these games in a future “Game of the Week” section, that’s for sure. :P

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Youtube:

Still chugging away (not chuggaaing) with Majora’s Mask as I’m making progress through the Great Bay area. Cycle #5 may perhaps be the longest and most activity-based of any of the cycles I’ve done so far, and in terms of recording, I’m still not done with it. Oh well, I figured that this kind of thing would happen when I started the Let’s Play, so I guess I get what I signed up for.

Also, after two weeks of uploading at CSS, I can’t believe I’m actually 2 videos away from finishing my solo segment. Co-commentary videos with PowerToMario and MegaFreak400 will be this week and then we will start posting videos of the final chapter for the week following. It’s hard to believe how far this project has come, although, we have been working on it for almost 8 months now.

It’s also getting to the point where “late July” may cease to exist soon, so many people have started wondering about my next Let’s Play….when and what it will be. For now, I’m still not completely sure if I will even be ready for it. I still haven’t exactly recorded anything yet and I have my hands filled with Majora and CSS already (since I will be doing the recording for Chapter 8 (it just won’t be only me)). I’ll see what I can do, and for now, probably the earliest possible release of the new project will be August 1st.

On the subject of the false flagging thing I mentioned two weeks ago, I’ve also been getting a lot of different comments and messages about the situation. As I’ve said in a recent stream notification video, on Wednesday when I have my stream (2 PM EDT, btw), I’ll probably talk about that a little bit, which will be the first time I’ve addressed the issue vocally. If you couldn’t tell (although again, I mentioned this 2 weeks ago), I’ve been trying to stay silent about the issue in order to not draw any attention to myself, and while that has been working in theory, I don’t think in the long run that will really be a factor. It’s honestly gotten to the point where the flaggers don’t really care about who they are targeting, especially since videos can be flagged regardless if they are public or private. So yeah, I’ll talk about it during the stream and probably during next week’s entry.

Schedule for following week:

Monday: Majora’s Mask(*)
Tuesday: Majora’s Mask, Thousand-Year Door #81
Wednesday: Majora’s Mask(*)
Thursday: Majora’s Mask, Thousand-Year Door #82
Friday: Majora’s Mask(*)
Saturday: Majora’s Mask(*)
Sunday: Majora’s Mask(*), New LP #1(?)
(*)- Possible double upload day
(?)– May not happen

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Game of The Week:

Mostly due to my current LP, and me making stupid mistakes between the game and the game that came before it, I figured it was a good opportunity to make that game this week’s Game of the Week. This week we have perhaps one of the highest rated games of all time!

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

When people think of this game, they think gaming perfection…..at least for it’s time. I have to be kind of honest here, I was never really one who thought that way. Don’t get me wrong, Ocarina of Time is a great game and it has had a very influential impact on gaming as a whole, and because of that, I have a lot of respect for it, but I never really saw the game as truly spectacular; just as another video game. In reality, I would actually rank 3 games higher than OoT, two of them being the games I have Let’s Played (or am currently Let’s Playing), and the third being Link to the Past. I still think 4th is actually a pretty good location considering there have been at least 10 games in the series (with another on the way).

I don’t think I have to go into much detail about what the game or series about since the game itself is really well known (plus I’m doing Majora’s Mask). If you are one of the few who have no idea about the OoT craze, basically, bad things are happening around the land of Hyrule, and signs seem to be pointing to a dark figure named Ganondorf. The chosen Hero of Time, Link, and Pricess of Hyrule, Zelda, try to work against his dark power, but at the time, are too weak to combat against it. Ganondorf proceeds to turn Hyrule into a twisted, dark world while Link has to take the test of time in order to become more powerful to fight the king of evil seven years into the future. It’s the typical “bad guy is dangerous, hero comes to kick his butt” storyline, with the classic Zelda twist.

When looking at this game with Majora’s Mask, there are three things that stand out between the two (besides the obvious fact they are different games (so rather, main things that stand out)); game length, difficulty, and sidequests. For game length, Majora’s Mask is obviously the shorter game, just because if you take out the sidequests, there really isn’t that much to it, especially if you know what to do. Ocarina of Time obviously sets itself up to be the longer game, but it doesn’t really expect you to do very much sidequesting. In the end though, with all of Majora’s side stuff, they are both pretty equivalent in terms of length. However, if you are looking for a decently-lengthed game to play through and just focus on the playing through part of it, Ocarina of Time probably wins out, but as I have said many times, Majora has a lot of charm by itself

. In terms of difficulty, Ocarina of Time is much easier than Majora’s Mask in a different variety of ways. For one, you really don’t have to worry about time as much as you do in Majora’s Mask, so you aren’t really required to rush through anything. Plus, since Majora’s Mask was kind of an OoT sequel, they tried to bring up the difficulty a tad, especially since it was a much shorter game (again, when not looking at side stuff). Also, from watching two blind playthroughs of both games, it seems like more people tend to have a better idea of what to do in Ocarina than in Majora, as Majora has a lot of “pay attention” moments. In a way, I would almost consider Ocarina of Time a beginner’s Zelda, to at least, you know, get the player used to the controls and mechanics of the game, and Majora more of an advanced Zelda game, one that expects you to pay more attention and solve slightly more complex puzzles.

As for sidequests, as you have probably seen from my LP, Majora is obviously, really about the sidequests. Without them, it would be a very short game. Ocarina of Time didn’t really have that many sidequests, besides the typical “collect a bunch of these” collectathons and random thrown along heart piece mini-games, which is fine, because they were obviously trying to focus more on the main quest, but in another way, it didn’t really make the people you met during the game (besides the main characters) or the locations you visited very memorable; just places you had to visit at least once for an item of sorts. With Majora, they actually got me interested in learning more about the characters and how their stories progress over the course of 3 days. I think if they at least tried to incorporate a little bit of that into OoT, it would have been a much better game (again, in my opinion).

Obviously as I have said before, it’s still a good game regardless, but when you look at how much they ignore in order to focus more on the main adventure, it almost makes the game seem kind of bland. Still though, you can’t really ignore the impact this game has had on the gaming world. Almost every gamer is familiar with Ocarina of Time in some way, and back in the days of N64, that was literally the game everyone talked about. If I had to give it a ranking, I would probably give it a 4/5 or 4.5/5, and not just for it’s influence. It’s a pretty solid game that has held up pretty well for today’s gaming standards…..I just don’t think it’s the best game ever like everyone else does. :P

LP Possibility: Honestly, I really doubt if I would LP this game, mostly because it’s a very common LP on Youtube and I don’t think I could really bring anything new to it. I just think it’s too overplayed at this point. I suppose it’s always possible in the very deep, deep, deep, deep future….but definitely not for now, even if I am doing Majora’s Mask.

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That's about it for this entry, see you guys next week for another one, and of course, see you for my videos and my stream. Later folks!

7/18/10 - Back From the Windy City

2010-07-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

This blog may be updated kind of late, but I have a very good excuse! In fact, this excuse could actually verify not updating at all, but I felt like I was in enough of a writing mood for you guys, so I decided to give you an entry. :P

Today, I actually returned from a 2-day trip to Chicago. Awhile back, me and 3 of my friends (one of which lives in Chicago) were actually planning on having a little gaming tournament of sorts (we try to have one on an annual basis), and since it was a change of pace, we put the location of this year's tournament in Chicago, that way we could devote one day to gaming, and the other to doing Chicago things. In the end, our plans went through and we ended up having a good time! In fact, your truly (me) actually ended up winning the gaming tournament. For those of you wondering, basically we just play a bunch of different games and for each game, we reward a point score to each participant based on placement (Mario Kart style). I ended up winning quite a few games, including Crazy Taxi, Diddy Kong Racing, a Grand Theft Auto IV Wanted Star challenge, Star Fox 64, Mario Tennis, and of course the two games I went into the tournament wanting to win, Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. There were a few other games worth mentioning, such as Wii Play, Wii Sports, and nearly everyone's favorite multiplayer N64 romp, Goldeneye, but my performance in those games was a bit more disappointing. However, in the end, overall performance dominates, and because of that, I was the victor this year.

For those wondering some of the things that we did in addition to the tournament, really not that much extra, but the things we did too were pretty nice considering. The first thing we did was have lunch at Giordano's home of Chicago's famous stuffed pizza, and boy was it delish. The best part about it was that I actually had leftovers for dinner that same night, so I had a very pizzaish day. Then we took a walk around Millenium Park, which was pretty cool (a lot of nice 'attractions' (if you could call them that) and just a nice little place to walk around). Really though, that's about it. I know it doesn't seem like much, but we could only be there for 2 days and you could only do so much in 2 days, and we also had to do the tournaments and spend some time hanging out for old-time sake. With what we did do though, it was fun. =)

Besides that though, not much going on. I'm really dreading the fact that in about a month's time I'll have to go back to my university again and deal with that giant wave of excitement (sarcasm of course). Again, not that I hate school, it's just a lot of work...

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Youtube:

Majora's Mask - Things are still going pretty well with project. Still not completely sure what to predict for an end-date, but I'd say by the end of August might be a pretty good guess.

CSS: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door - So far, Chapter 7 has been moving along pretty nicely. I really like what I did for last Friday's episode and I seemed to have gotten a good response from the viewers and from my fellow CSS members, so it feels nice to be doing something right. Still gotta record most of the videos for this next week, plus I got to start planning for the co-commentary segments which will be coming up either next week or the end of this one (more than likely next week though).

New Project? - Near the end of Mario Party 6, I made an announcement that a new project will be coming near the end of July, and we are over half-way done with the month at this point. At this point, there are still a few kinks I want to work out (mainly, I have an idea, I'm just not 100% sure on if it's what I want to do). I may have some new information on next week's entry.

Video Schedule for 7/19/10 - 7/25/10

Monday, 7/19 - Majora's Mask, Paper Mario TTYD #78 (CSS)
Tuesday 7/20 - Majora's Mask (*)
Wednesday 7/21 - Majora's Mask, Paper Mario TTYD #79 (CSS)
Thursday 7/22 - Majora's Mask (*)
Friday 7/23 - Majora's Mask, Paper Mario TTYD #80 (CSS)
Saturday 7/24 - Majora's Mask (*)
Sunday 7/25 - Majora's Mask (*)

CSS - Project hosted at CrystalStarStudio Youtube channel.
* - Possibility that more than one upload for project could happen on that particular day.

Really, nothing much else to expect for this week; just the ordinary. Next week I may try to organize a stream event or something, although it probably wouldn't happen until the middle of the week.

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Game of the Week

Like last week, this week's game is a sequel of another game I have already LPed for Youtube. It's no really coincidence really, I just played this game more than any other, especially during the long road trip to Chicago. Anyways, here it is....

Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising

Yeah, the first game was cool; had a lot of awesome strategic moments, some epic battles, a lot of different features, and even the world's biggest tease target and dunce, Andy, but Advance Wars 2 pretty much took the formula of the original, made a few, but nothing major, tweaks, added some new units and characters, and ended up with a pretty exciting package.

The 2nd game pretty much ends up where the first game left off. After Black Hole's vanishing act after being defeated by the combined forces of Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, and Green Earth, Black Hole has now returned with some new COs of their own as they try to take control of the very same nations they were stopped by. It seems like a very dull story, as I'm sure many of you are willing to bet, but one thing I actually kind of liked about the game was that despite their story emphasis being low, they actually spent quite a bit of time on the character development, and actually did a good job with it. All of the different personalities are pretty distinct and fitting for the type of characters they are.

Unlike the first game where you pretty much had to follow Orange Star for the entire time, this game is broken down into 5 parts, each part taking place on one of the different countries. And while you are in each one, you are restricted to using only the COs that represent that country, which means you can't just pick Max every single time like I did in my AW1 LP. This allows you to get acquainted with different COs and use different strategies and abilities throughout the game. Although with some COs, you'll have a pretty easy run due to the nature of their abilities (COs like Colin, Kanbei, and Sensei), there will be some missions that might give you a little trouble, especially in Hard Campaign.

Like Advance Wars 1, Black Hole Rising has a lot of the same extra content, once again featuring the War Room scenarios and a bunch of different VS. maps to play on. The only difference is that this game just gives you more to work with. Honestly, when looking at both games on a whole, you can't really say Advance Wars 2 failed or lacked on any front in comparison with the 1st game because everything was pretty much either an improvement or an addition. Basically, I don't really have anything negative to say about the game at all (except that some missions (especially on Hard Mode) can be very tedious and annoying, but I think that's kind of the point....to be more challenging).

In the end, if I had to score this game, I would honestly go as low as 4.5/5, although I think the game is pretty close to perfection as it's going to get that a 5/5 wouldn't be too far-fetched here. The only thing you could really say about the game is that after awhile it may get a little boring if you have been playing it non-stop like I normally do. It's really the type a game that you may just want to pick up and play every now and then, which is perfectly fine. I actually even find myself sitting down and playing a War Room scenario every now and then when I got nothing better to do or if I'm watching a TV program or something.

LP Possibility: As soon as I finished Advance Wars, right away, even if I answered the multitude of questions beforehand, I got literally swarmed with requests to do Black Hole Rising. I will say for the time being that I have been considering the possibility of doing the 2nd game somewhere down the road, but I'm holding back for many reasons; in my eyes, good reasons. For one, it's just a really long game to cover and I'm just not up for the task yet. Second, there are many other long games I want to cover beforehand and if I focus too much on doing the sequel, those games will possibly get shut out for even longer, something I don't want to happen. And finally, I just don't want to do it yet. I've already expressed the possibility of doing it somewhere down the line....that should be enough!

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That about does it for this entry, sorry for the lateness.

7/11/10 - Still Going, Even After 3 Years

2010-07-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity for me (didn't I use that phrase in my 3rd-Year special?). So much that I didn't even have very much time for video and blog updates this past week. However, with things slowing down, I think I'm finally ready to get back on track with everything. I do apologize for my somewhat lack of motivation, as I could have at least attempted to release something last week (whether it be last week's entry, or a few more videos), but it honestly just wasn't going to happen that easily. And while it probably didn't bother you guys as much, I did get a bit more behind in Majora's Mask than I wanted to be. Pretty much all of my hopes for completing the game before I go back to college for my Fall semester, have been denied (unless I do mass-updates, which I refuse to do).

While we are on the subject of Youtube, it has come to the attention of me, and many of my subscribers, that there is a Youtube user out there going around falsely flagging the videos of popular Youtube users, one of them being NintendoCapriSun, one of the most known LPers of this time. Many of my subscribers have been sending me messages around the clock asking me for my plan of action, and what I'm going to do to handle this "threat," if it were to fall on me. For the time being, I'm just going to continue to make updates like I normally do and not give this guy any of my time. I know that probably seems a little ignorant, but until he actually makes the threat, why should we even give him a reason to attack? These kinds of guys thrive on getting a reaction out of people, and that is just what they are doing and succeeding at. Me and a few others were talking last night about this whole situation with NCS, and we came to the conclusion that the only thing this guy has accomplished in the last few days is get 40,000 people pissed at him. NCS's account is still there (although the videos are still private (he privated all of his videos so they couldn't be flagged)), and the threatener is still casually strolling around feeling safe and satisfied. 40,000 people insulting and threatening him back isn't going to do anything. This is something that needs the attention of Youtube moderation or administration, which unfortunately and terribly ironically, isn't being done. I say "terribly ironically" because the guy claims he is trying to show fault with the Youtube moderation and justice system, and the justice system isn't really doing anything about this. In a way, the staff is pretty much showing that he is correct, albeit I think he is doing it in the worst possible way. Anyways, for now though, if you are honestly that concerned with what this guy is doing, just keep your silence and keep your eyes peeled for more information. Eventually the guy will end up saying something that he probably shouldn't say. And when that happens, it needs to be recorded and taken to someone who can do something about it. We aren't getting anywhere with returning threats. Anyways, if I get anymore information about this situation, especially if I somehow get targeted next, I'll find a way to let you guys know about how I will take action against it.

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Youtube:

3rd Year Anniversary Special - Finally, after many months of the project being announced, a few delays here and there, and after copious and tedious amounts of video capturing and editing, the 3rd-Year clip show special went up last Wednesday, and I have to say, I thought it went pretty well. There were a few obvious things I was kind of disappointed on, mostly the audio quality for certain parts, and the videos themselves seemed just like a giant cluster of clips, whether they fit in certain parts or not. Also, having to cut certain things out for time and other reasons was kind of disappointing and disheartening. In the end though, the feedback has been pretty positive, and it's nice getting that for something you've worked hard on, even if it is minimal. I probably won't try another special like this for a long while, and even if I do, it probably won't be as extensive (maybe just over the previous year). Either way, it's a relief putting that to a close.

Majora's Mask - Well, now that Mario Party 6 is over, prepare to see a lot of this game over the next few months, which is why I hope you guys are enjoying the project. Anyways, on Friday, I recorded all of the current cycle I'm on and it's going to be about the same length as Woodfall cycle, if anything, a little shorter due to all the different cuts I made. A lot of the stuff in Snowhead is mostly just traveling from Point A to Point B, especially in the temple. So I guess it is safe to say that I tried to take advantage of that. At least those who complain about me spending so much time on the sidequests will be remedied somewhat by these last two cycles. Anyways, I know it's kind of a spoiler since I was so negative about making it to Snowhead Temple in this cycle, but the Temple videos will start Wednesday and last to (or through) the weekend. I guess I need to stop underestimating my abilities when I'm playing this game.....although I'm not usually this prepared either.

CrystalStarStudio/Paper Mario: TTYD - Get ready for this to be a main part of discussion for the next few weeks, because it is finally my time to shine on the project! PowerToMario finished up Chapter 6 this past week on Thursday, and I will be starting fresh on Monday with Chapter 7. Just want to quickly remind you guys that the project will be updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (no more updates, no less updates), unless something comes up that causes me to postpone (very small likelihood). I am very much looking forward to my turn, and I hope you guys enjoy the videos.

As for PowerToMario and his chapter, I thought he did a very solid job. Like with ThePastaKing, I was originally a bit concerned if he would take the initiative to update on CSS's schedule, because on their own channels, they have a more relaxed style of when and what they want to upload, but in the end, PTM really came through for the project, and I'm proud of his work. It was also a lot of fun to co-commentate with him and ShadowMario41 during the last 4 videos. The only problem we had with the chapter was PTM's unfortunate mishap with his capture card. About midway through the chapter, a storm hit Florida and did some damage to his computer/dazzle (we never really determined which was the problem) which prevented his device from being recognized whenever it was plugged in. However, in the end, the problem was remedied and everything was fixed, so PTM, if you are reading this, I would like to thank you for taking such an initiative to work around the problem, even if it did create some inconveniences. And also, while we are on the subject, I would also like to thank GaiaCrusher9 for allowing PTM to come over to his house and record the rest of his chapter there(since they live so close to each other). You two saved the project. :P

Next Week on Youtube:

(CSS) - Videos marked with a "(CSS)" indicate videos that will only be updated on the Youtube Channel "CrystalStarStudio," not on any of my solo accounts.
* - Days with this mark indicate that it is a day with a possibility of a 2nd upload. I will say right now that it won't be a very likely occurrence though. As I think I've said before, the biggest thing that affects whether this will happen or not is my own judgment. I'm not going to upload a 2nd one just because people want me to.
^ - Days with mark indicate that there may be a possible missed update on these days. If such a thing occurs, I will decide what to do (whether it's multiple uploads the first day I can update, or if it's not worth it to make up for it). It really depends on the situation. The reason for a possible missed update will be explained below the schedule.

Monday, July 12th - Majora's Mask, Paper Mario: TTYD #75 (CSS)
Tuesday, July 13th - Majora's Mask
Wednesday, July 14th - Majora's Mask, Paper Mario: TTYD #76 (CSS)
* Thursday, July 15th - Majora's Mask
Friday, July 16th - Majora's Mask, Paper Mario: TTYD #77 (CSS)
*^ Saturday, July 17th - Majora's Mask
*^ Sunday, July 18th - Majora's Mask

Possible Missed Updates in the Future: Just to warn you guys, I may not be able to update next Saturday or Sunday. On Friday, I'm actually going to be going on a little road trip with my friends to see an old high school buddy of ours who lives in Chicago. If where we are staying has Internet access, I'll definitely update (unless it is a completely unstable connection, or if it costs money to use). If I do miss these update days, I'll upload all missed videos on the day I get back.

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Game of the Week:

I've Let's Played a lot of games on Youtube, and sometimes, throughout my Let's Plays, people will want me to play something by their request, usually a sequel or another game of a series I have done. The game I will be talking about this week is the sequel of the first game I Let's Played where afterwards, people cotinually asked, will you do the sequel? If you think it is Radiant Dawn, you are going to be a little off....

Pikmin 2

Mostly due to Bikdiponabus's playthrough of Pikmin 1 and K-Man's announcement of his Pikmin 2 replay, I decided to once again pick-up Pikmin 2 and take on the challenges of pikmin raising and task-based survival. The original Pikmin game was actually very well-received, but so many people complained about the 30-day time limit, where if you don't get a certain amount of stuff before a certain day (Day 30), you lose. I however, was really never bothered by the challenge and found myself actually completing the game in half the time I needed to. Nevertheless, Nintendo eventually announced the sequel and immediately stated that the 30-day time limit was obsolete. While this was indeed true, the time-crunching agenda of each day for Olimar, and new his partner Louie still existed as they go back to the Pikmin planet to score some treasure to get their company out of debt. Also, with things getting more difficult as time goes on (more enemies get added to the region the longer you take, and this includes tough boss ones as well), even with no time limit, you will still find yourself rushing to get things done in a matter of a few days.

Now, I have to admit, and this is going to be a hard thing to admit because the popular opinion is a bit different, but I honestly couldn't get into this game as much as I did for the original Pikmin. I'm honestly not sure why, I guess I was just so used to the time-crunchiness of the first game that when I got the 2nd game, I just wanted to take it slow because the game advertised a lesser emphasis on the time limit. Also, while there are less regions in this game, there is a lot more to do, especially with the more extensive Challenge Mode, so the game itself is actually pretty big in retrospect. Like Pikmin 1, you'll probably need an exploratory playthrough before you can play this game more competently, and for some reason, I wasn't really digging that idea. Despite though, Pikmin 2 is actually a really well-made game and would still rank it highly on the Gamecube's best list.

If I had to rank the difficulty between the two games, I honestly wouldn't know whether or not this game is harder or easier. A lot of people say it's easier because you don't have as much of a time crunch, and the very cheap purple Pikmin break the game so much when it comes to combat. However, the organization of what you are going to do each day is a lot more interactive and you aren't going to be able to plan your daily routes as easily as you could in Pikmin 1. I'd honestly say Pikmin 2 is more difficult in that respect, although I am a bit more biased because I've played the original game so much more.

In the end though, when you put both games together, you have a really neat and innovative series, and I'm surprised we haven't seen a Pikmin 3 yet. However, according to Miyamoto though, it is definitely in the works, so maybe we won't have to wait that long. In conclusion for Pikmin 2, it's a very unique and fun action and strategy game with quite a bit of replay value to improve your strategies and your final scores and rankings + an extensive challenge mode. The only problems I see from this game are that some aspects of the gameplay can completely break some parts of the game and make it a lot easier, but technically, you don't even have to play that way. Also, I have some obvious biased nostalgia for the original game. If I had to rank Pikmin 2, I would give it a 4.5/5.

LP Possibility: Many people have been asking for a Pikmin 2 playthrough since I did the original game back in 2008. I will say that I am thinking about it, and it is a very good possibility....I would just rather wait until K-Man finishes his replay of the game. :P

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Ok guys, that is about it for this update. As usual, I hope you enjoyed reading, and I will see you again next week. Later folks!

No Update This Week!

2010-07-04T21:26:00.001-07:00

Sorry guys, but I'm not going to have time to do any updates for this week. Due to the Sunday holiday and work I gotta do during the first part of this next week, it's just going to make more sense to hold off on any updates and just save them for next week. Sorry if you were expecting some major awesome blog writing. =(

6/27/10 - Busy? In the Summer? Is that Possible?

2010-06-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another exciting blog entry!

I’m going to keep things kind of brief in this entry, mostly because I will have a video later on talking about Youtube stuff and I’m kind of swamped with things I gotta get done today (and tomorrow). Not like it will make any major difference as I didn’t really have much extra I wanted to talk about. I will still talk about Youtube projects to a small extent and will of course feature a “Game of the Week” section.

Basically, here is a rundown of the stuff I originally planned to get done this weekend. First, I of course had to upload today and yesterday’s video and of course update the blog today as well. Yesterday we had a Mario Kart Wii session for the Blargg Pit’s Gaming Nights section, plus we have a Mario trivia event tonight as well (and I am the host of the warm-up section, not to mention a regular on the main trivia). In addition to that, I had some Mario Party 6 videos to finalize for this coming Tuesday and I have to start and get cracking on my 3rd Year Anniversary special, which I am doing some major, unintentional slacking on. Then of course I also planned for the Youtube update video tonight as well.

Then, at 12 PM yesterday afternoon, we got the phone call of extremely bad timing. It was my uncle asking if we could have our cousins stay the week with us (the same cousins I bitched about in a December entry). Of course, we couldn’t say no because they live in Arizona and we never get to see them as often as we normally get to, even if it was a major inconvenience for all of us (for different reasons). I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my cousins and as I have always stated before in older videos of mine, I am a true family man. I put family on perhaps a higher pedestal than my own health. It’s just that it was a major inconvenience on everyone’s part and we pretty much had to and will continue to rearrange our plans and our schedule pretty much on the spot. Oh well, what’s done is done.

However, because my cousins are so into the Wii, I actually got to play some Mario Party 8! Of course, I wasn’t actually playing against them, but I had the controller for most of the time. In fact, it’s kind of a funny story. My littlest cousin, who is about only 4 or 5 years of age, thought she was picking all 4 characters for herself. I rolled with it for awhile, but then when I tried to make her realize she was just controlling one of them, she didn’t really listen. So at one point during the match, she was cheering for all 3 characters she wasn’t controlling, and was wanting bad things to happen to Dry Bones, the one she was actually moving. And of course, since kids can’t comprehend how the motion controls work, I had to control pretty much the whole game for her, and whenever I had a decision, I had to ask her what she wanted to do. Safe to say, Dry Bones didn’t get any candy or dolphin rides the entire game. However, I was owning the mini-games….which is a shame because she turned the bonus stars off….. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting experience to play a match in the perspective of someone who didn’t realize what exactly was going on. Maybe next time I’ll try to be more clever and try to win without her realizing :P

Anyways, thought you would enjoy that little anecdote. Gotta say, I’m actually looking forward to Mario Party 8, despite how freaking long the games can take in that game.

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Last Week on Channel SlimKirby:

Mario Party 6 – With the end of the project drawing near, the extra videos have begun. I end up getting 2 wins and a purposeful loss on Solo Mode (a lot of people think I sucked at the one I lost despite the fact I made it clear that I was losing on purpose -_-). Then I put myself in the driver’s seat for a taste of Mic Mode, where the voice recognition of Star Sprint is as solid as pudding. Then it’s on to the first part of Mini-Game mode, featuring Battle Bridge, Mount Duel, and Decathalon Park, all modes that I end up ruling with a Gamecube controller shaped fist!

Notes: This week of MP6 videos went pretty well I must say. It’s kind of disheartening that I felt more confident with these videos than some of the actual Party Mode boards.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask – I could’ve only stalled the beginning of the first temple for so long. Finally I start the Woodfall Temple after some sneaking around in the Deku Palace and some sticky work in the swamp.

Notes: I’ve learned something from this project; I can never make my fans happy. They either complain about me missing something, complain about not making progress, and complain about the way I accidentally pronounce things. I understand my mispronunciation of “Sonata” is wrong and it can kind of be annoying to hear that mistake several times (because of the fact that I record all of my videos in advance, I often learn my mistakes after I’ve already recorded them. I just really wish some people would actually “think” before posting something. Is it really that much to ask? Apparently it’s way too much for society in today’s world.

Next Week’s Schedule:

Monday (28th) – Majora’s Mask #19
Tuesday (29th) – Mario Party 6 - Mini-Game Mode Part 2
Wednesday (30th) – Majora’s Mask #20
Thursday (1st) – Mario Party 6 – Final Extras and Closing
Friday (2nd) – Majora’s Mask #21
Saturday (3rd) – Majora’s Mask #22
Sunday (4th) – TENTATIVE: 3rd Year Anniversary Special

Notes: As you can see, we have two things to note here (technically 3).
1). First off, Mario Party 6 is ending on Thursday, and that date will be final. So after Thursday, Mario Party 6 will be a done deal.
2). We have something “TENTATIVE” on the list. What does this mean? Basically, I’m not sure if I will be able to release the 3rd Year Special on that date or not. It really depends on how much I can get done during this hectic week. I would like to be able to just sit down and work through it, but that luxury will be very hard to obtain.
3). This note is not as obvious mostly due to the fact that I conveniently have enough Majora’s Mask episodes for this next week. However, after #22, I will be out of them, so I’ll have to find a way to record some more. Because of this, I may take a few days off after the 4th to get some more episodes recorded, but after that, it should be smooth sailing.

Finally, I have a few things I wanted to discuss in regards to the Youtube section of the blog. I was considering doing a little more with section, maybe going into some details about possible video landmarks, and maybe having something like a “Comment of the Week” or something. It’s still a work in progress (in terms of theof the thinking process), but as usual, suggestions are welcome. Just don’t make it something that will take me hours to finalize)

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Game of the Week:

Today’s Game of the Week comes from deep space, and once again from my DS library. This is a game I brought up briefly in one of my Mario Party 6 videos and gave it a fairly harsh mini-view (mini-review) based on the first and only time I played the game. Recently I went back to it to give it another chance, and figured it would be appropriate for this section.

Star Fox: Command

Although Star Fox Adventures is usually considered the black sheep of the Star Fox series (mostly due to the fact it’s almost a Zelda clone), at least I found Adventures somewhat unique with its own charm. In my opinion, I think this game actually did quite a bit to test the waters and test its fans with something new.

The thing about Command is that it tries to be a bit more interactive than the other Star Fox games. Instead of going from planet to planet on a rail system and blasting things all around you, in this game you actually have to strategize your own movements before you actually get to the blasting. It focuses a lot more on the strategizing than the actual action-packed dogfighting. Basically, whenever you start a mission, you have control over a specific number of pilots and their aircrafts (varies from mission to mission) and you have to plan their flight path. You generally want to aim for enemy waves, giant missiles, and bases, and the goal for each mission is usually to take out all of the enemy forces. Whenever you come into contact with an enemy force, you go into flight combat with that force, and you have to take out all of the units before time runs out (your fuel gauge). If any enemy units or missiles come into contact with the stationary Great Fox, or you run out of turns before defeating everything, you will fail the mission and have to start from the beginning. It’s a pretty neat concept, but it gets hindered quite a bit by something I will talk about later.
The strategizing aspect of the game is really quite fair, and usually doesn’t take a genius to figure out. You are generally given enough time to complete each mission and enemy units don’t generally come out of nowhere. Even in the normally annoying “fog-of-war” segments, you are given the option to mark out some of the fog to see what you normally wouldn’t be able to in other games without memorization. Plus, the enemy AI is pretty predictable with what it does.

The problem with the game, in my opinion, comes from the action and flying segments where you actually have control of the Arwing and when you are trying to take out the enemy units. The controls, although not terrible, are pretty hard to work with and get used to. You move the Arwing around with the touch screen and you fire your lasers with either the directional pad or the A, B, X, and Y buttons (don’t think there is really a different). Now, I don’t know what you guys think, but if I had never played the game and if someone was trying to explain the controls to me, I would be confused with how that would even work. They just seem so inconvenient for the type of game Command is. With that being said, the controls somehow work pretty well despite how stupid they are. It just takes a lot of getting used to….A LOT of getting used to. The problems with the controls are actually pretty situational. In my opinion, the most annoying thing to deal with in the entire game are the missile chases. Basically, whenever you come into contact with an enemy missile, you have to play a mini-game where you have to chase the missile through a series of beacons while trying to shoot it down. It sounds pretty simple, but when you try to combine both the moving and shooting controls, while going at really fast speeds, it becomes a very annoying challenge. If you miss just one beacon, the missile gets away and moves closer to the Great Fox. Also, the beacon courses are actually randomly set, so you can’t expect to get the same beacon path every time. I wouldn’t even call the mini-game a challenge…..it’s just annoying. You can make it to the very end of the mission, with just one missile remaining, and fail the entire mission just because of the stupid missile chase.

Besides that though, it’s still a pretty solid title. It’s far from being the best Star Fox game, but if you can get used to the controls and the gameplay, you can actually find quite a bit of replay value. There are multiple branching paths to the story you can unlock after you complete the game once, and so far, from what I have seen, each path is actually pretty unique with different map layouts and challenges across the board. As for the game’s storyline, it’s actually kind of dull in my opinion, and the majority of the stories seem to focus on the failing relationship of Fox and Krystal, where Fox is a complete dick and Krystal is an uptight bitch (excuse me for the language, but that is the impression I got).

Overall, I would give the game a 3/5. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s not as bad as I originally thought it was. Once you get past the controls, it’s actually a pretty good game with some nice replay value, albeit with some problems in repetitiveness. Still though, glad I gave this game another chance.

LP Possibility: Because it’s a DS game, “NO!” but even if it wasn’t a DS game, I would still be somewhat hesitant in LPing it. Because I like 100% playthroughs, I would definitely not be interested in covering the entire game. It’s just has so many different paths, none of which seem to have any major difference, and it just seems like it would be a hassle, and almost a little boring.

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That’s about it for this entry folks! I’m not really sure if I am going to update next week, because I will probably be more focused on my 3rd Year Anniversary special, but I’ll let you guys know beforehand if I decide to cancel next week’s update or not. Later!

- SlimKirby

6/20/10 - New Week, New Section, New Nintendo Stuffz, Slightly New Format

2010-06-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here for another somewhat exciting blog entry! I’m sure there are many things to talk about in this entry, but just where do we begin? Well, I do promise this time that I have a few topics in mind of what to discuss, one of them being E3, and the other being a new section I plan to add to my blog. The first of which will occur first in my list of topics and the other at the very end.

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E3 2010: Let’s Start the Nintendo Bias!

Before I start talking about stuff, I want you guys to remember a few things. One, I am not a big Xbox360 or Playstation 3 person. I think that should be made obvious from my videos and LP project selections, but not everybody is that observant. However, this doesn’t mean I hate the two systems or have something against them…. it’s just that they don’t interest me enough to plunk money down to buy them. Two, I consider this blog a part of CrystalStarStudio and the Blargg Pit, and we have made it pretty obvious that we are and will continue to be a website with ties to Nintendo, and that’s just the way it is.

I will admit that that I do have rather high favor to Nintendo, almost to the extent of a bias, but that’s just who I am and what I think. I’m not going to criticize anybody for having the polar opposite opinion (unless their statements are downright unlogical to the point of being blasphemous and ignorant), and if someone disagrees with what I say, I’m not going to throw a fit. I mean, surely we are all grown-ups here (and if not, there is no excuse not to act like one).

Basically, from what I saw and read from Sony and Microsoft’s conference, I wasn’t impressed. They had some good games shown, and some of the technology was neat, but for the most part, pretty damn predictable and boring. At least Nintendo threw in a few surprises (although I will admit the majority of their titles are classic franchises, but at least some of them have unique twists, and others that haven’t been around for awhile). I think Microsoft may have spent more time talking about the Kinect than they should have, and while Sony had a few titles that actually got me interested, their conference just dragged. That’s my opinion….if you don’t like it…fine, don’t let what I say change your opinion, as long as you don’t try to force your beliefs on me.

Now that I’m done talking about that, I think I am going to move into the Nintendo stuff, part by part, game by game.

Nintendo 3DS: Although this was the system that kind of pissed me off earlier in the year (since I just bought a brand new DSi recently), I have to admit that I like what I see thus far. The games look great and the system already has some great 3rd party support. And most importantly, those who tested the system have already given it outstanding reviews. I can honestly say I am looking forward to this system. I just have to get the money for it together.
Kid Icarus: This game is already looking to be a great revival of an NES classic. Probably not the game I’m most excited about, but it did grab my attention. Not to mention that the graphics (even without the 3D aspect) look freaking fantastic.

Other 3DS Games: Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Paper Mario, remakes of Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time…..tremendous 3rd party support from Konami, Square Enix, and even my favorite small 3rd party company, Koei…..there is really not much I have to say, which is kind of appropriate because mostly just images were released from these games. Oh, and no one bring up Nintendogs + Cats, as I will sarcastically laugh at you if you do.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyword Sword: This game is looking great despite the poor presentation of the game during the conference. It was far from Nintendo’s fault from what I have read though. I imagine that the controls will be pretty well polished. After all, I thought Twilight Princess did a great job with that, and now that they have a little more experience, it can only get better.

Mario Sports Mix: Once again, would have preferred a new Golf or Tennis game, but this will be an interesting embark in the Mario Sports franchise. I mean…..FREAKING DODGEBALL! I can’t wait to start throwing dodgeballs at Princess Peach all the live long day. =) The other games are Volleyball, Hockey, and Basketball by the way (yay for no stylus controlled basketball). I’m interested to see how much content they put in for each of the games, and I hope it’s not too limited in variety (like the sports were in Mario Party). Also, I think wifi will be a pretty big necessity after it’s disappointing lack of inclusion in Mario Super Sluggers.

Wii Party: Instead of Mario Party…..we get this! I’m not going to say anything about this game just yet as I would like some more information before I call it a cheap rip-off (and possible replacement) of Mario Party, but I just don’t know. I may get it though because I am a big fan of the party genre and Nintendo generally does a pretty good job of the “Wii ______” games. Also, speaking of Mario Party and Hudsonsoft, I was looking at Hudson’s current project list for the Nintendo systems, and all of you Mario Party enthusiasts may be disappointed to find out that Mario Party doesn’t exist anywhere on that list and at the top is a “Beyblade” game…..I mean COME ON…..Beyblade? Who plays that?

Kirby’s Epic Yarn: Ugh, that name…... I don’t care how original the name is or that it is supposed to be a pun…I just don’t like it. I will say though that the game itself looks freaking fantastic and something that only Kirby can and will pull off. So even if the name changes to “Kirby’s Ugly Yarn.” I would still buy it because I in fact like what I see.

Donkey Kong Country Returns: If I had to pick just one game to be Nintendo’s “Best in Show,” this game would be it. It’s been almost 15 years since the last true “Donkey Kong Country” game (11 if you must count Donkey Kong 64), and while there have been some good attempts by Paon (Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber), this I think will be the one that brings back the classic DKC formula, hands freaking down! So glad Retro Studios grabbed this masterpiece and is trying to bring it back.

Goldeneye 007: I actually heard rumors about this comeback game before the show and when I saw the teaser, I knew it was going to be Goldeneye. I am actually pretty interested to see how this game will end up. I mean, let’s face it, they did try to release a Goldeneye game awhile back (Rouge Agent) that ended up falling on it’s back and we can only hope, especially for those who grew up with this game (including me) that they don’t do the same. So far it looks pretty good, but you can only get so much from a trailer.

Metroid: Other M: A lot of people were wondering what my opinion was on this game, but honestly, this is not a new coming. This was announced last year. The whole feature was basically just confirming that the game would be out soon. There is nothing really to say about it. It does look nice though, I will admit.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Here is another game that my viewers were also kind of disappointed with me for not mentioning. Golden Sun was a pretty big deal on the Game Boy Advance and has since then not really been around. For now, it looks pretty cool, although I was honestly never really fond of the original GBA games. I may have to try and get around to trying those games again before I make a final decision though, since I did leave them pretty well unfinished. Great move to bring this game out again.

Epic Mickey: Of all the games presented, this one actually caught my interest in a very unique way, mostly with how the gameplay works. This is definitely a title I will need to follow in the coming months to decide if a purchase will happen. The gameplay almost reminds me of Psychonauts in that it takes a very common genre (platforming) and adds unique twists to make it a very unforgettable experience.

And finally….because people want me to comment on games I don’t want to talk about….

Sonic Colors: No comment

That about does it for my heavily-Nintendo biased coverage of this year’s E3 event. I hope you guys enjoyed me blabbering on for way too long about stuff you probably didn’t want to hear about.
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Last Week on Channel SlimKirby:

Mario Party 6 – Clockwork Castle: This was a pretty solid playthrough if I say so myself. The beginning was kind of rough as I tried to settle in to a very unfamiliar board and board concept, and the fact the CPUs got some early bouts of good luck didn’t help, but I came through in the end with flying colors. Next week we got some extras, so I hope you guys stay tuned for that.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask: Well, the 2nd cycle is over, and after about an hour’s worth of sidequesting, I’m finally ready to continue the game…you know, the game I should be playing, involving the weird kid with the powerful mask? That’s right! That game! Anyways, I think for all of you progression types, this is the cycle you will live for. Sure, it took me 10 videos (no joke) to get through all of what I wanted to, but it was still the amount of progression I was hoping for. I pretty much cleaned the swamp out of all activity, with really only a few things left to do (most of which I will be covering much later). The LP will be going kind of slow over the next few weeks, mostly so I can finish up Mario Party 6, but it is definitely moving.

Next Week’s Schedule:

Monday (21st): Majora’s Mask #15
Tuesday (22nd): Mario Party 6 – Solo Mode
Wednesday (23rd): Majora’s Mask #16
Thursday (24th): Mario Party 6 – Mic Mode
Friday (25th): Majora’s Mask #17
Saturday (26th): Mario Party 6 – Mini-Game Mode: Part 1
Sunday (27th): Majora’s Mask #18

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Game of the Week:

Here is a new section I am going to be test-running. Every week, especially now, during the summer, I will pick one game that I am currently playing and maybe talk about it for a little bit. I got the idea pretty much from my last few entries when I have been talking about DS games that I have been revisiting. Don’t expect this to be a review, really more of a small quip about the game with maybe some statements of how I originally felt about the game compared with my feelings now, and the possibility of a future LP (or replay, depending on if it is a game I have already LPed).

Super Mario 64 DS:

This was the game that pretty much started the launch of the Nintendo DS back in 2004, a game that tried to recreate that classic nostalgia that many experienced back in 1996 when the Nintendo 64 first released. It definitely brought a lot more to the table than it’s original counterpart, but many felt the awkwardness of the DS’s directional pad would bring this game to a complete downfall. In the end, the game was pretty successful, and many people got over the controls pretty quickly

I randomly picked this game up last weekend during my DS revival and figured I would give this classic recreation another go after a few years of the game being slightly layered with dust. Now, while the game did keep my attention for awhile, I don’t think it did for the right reasons. I think I found myself continuing really just to see how the star missions were different from the N64 versions, and nearly in every case the mission was a lot easier in the handheld than it was on the console. The only real challenge was not making a stupid mistake with the movement controls. It felt like I had to redo the Bowser in the Fire Sea red coin mission for about a half an hour because whenever I made a small mistake, I couldn’t recover from it for one reason or another. Besides that though, you can breeze through it pretty easily….almost too easily. In fact, I never noticed how much Luigi can break the game in certain places (that tornado float is insane).

Overall, it is a pretty decent game, but not an experience I would swear by. Back when it first released, it actually had charm because it was like you were experiencing an N64 game on a handheld (something many thought was unlikely at the time). Now though, it almost seems like the game was made just to give the DS a recognizable launch title. If I had to give the game a score based on my recent experience, I would give it a 3 out of 5. A first timer's experience would probably be a little higher, maybe with a 3.5/5 or even a 4/5.

Let’s Play Possibility: Well, since it’s a DS game, with my current equipment it is an obvious “No!” Assuming the technology were possible (BESIDES EMULATORS AND CAMCORDER LPS), it would be kind of an interesting choice. Hell, comparing the star missions and other general differences betweens the game and the original on the N64 could bring up some informational and insightful commentary.

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That is about it for this entry. I hope you guys enjoyed reading what I had to babble on and on about. Also, feel free to give me some insight on the slightly adjusted format, as well as the new “Game of the Week” section. Besides that though, see you guys next weekend!

- SlimKirby

6/13/10 - Fairely and Squarely

2010-06-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, and welcome to another exciting (HA!) entry of FTMOS (for those who suck at acronyms, look at the name of the blog).

Not a lot went on this week worth noting about....really just the same old boring summer antics. Don't get me wrong, I love summer vacation, and the 3 1/2 month break from school and classes will always be a plus for me, but honestly, on a day-to-day basis, nothing interesting really happens during summer anymore. Let me tell you, I've had summers where I've worked, and I've had summers where I completely opened up my schedule, and I honestly couldn't tell you which one is better. When you are working, you are more than likely going to have a job you don't like doing (if you do, more power to you). Once you get that job, that is pretty much all you are going to do until the summer is over, or until the job doesn't need to be done anymore (aka: summer camps), and your schedule is pretty much going to be decided. When you don't get a job and rely on planning out your schedule, you pretty much have to take full initiative, otherwise nothing will get done and you are just going to be sitting in your room staring at the TV screen all day. For example, me and my friends from high school are planning two events for this summer; 1) Going to and observing a Pokemon tournament which will be held in Indianapolis, and 2) Hosting a personal gaming tournament between our group of friends (something we've been trying to do every 2 years since 2004). Now, I am totally committed to both things, yet my friends never seem to want to discuss or plan these things out. They assure me that the events will happen, but they conveniently never answer the questions of "When?" "Where?" and "How?" I think people are like this because they assume that since they have a few months, they can wait as long as they want because of the free time they think they have. However, the more you put it off, the less likely it's going to happen. For example, what if someone's work hours need to get extended? What if there is a family or personal emergency? Once one of those things happens, your plans are pretty much thrown out the window. You have to be persistent in planning something, because it won't happen otherwise, especially if you are like my friends, thinking you have more time than you actually do (although for them, it's more due to the fact that they have jobs, but still).

As I explained in my Faire Square videos, for videogames this week, I got into Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis for my DS playthrough of the week. Overall, it's a nice game, but it's also a game that I think needs a lot of different fixes. Some of the puzzles seem almost over the top and to get the best (gold) score, you pretty much have to memorize the best path through each level, which can be kind of annoying. This week I will be playing through Super Mario 64 DS again. At this point, as far as my star count is concerned, I am about 1/3 through the game, so I don't expect to take very long with it. So far I am enjoying the game, but I really wish the game could take advantage of an analog stick, as the platforming is kind of awkward with the directional pad. I'll probably talk about this a little more in my next Mario Party board.

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Majora's Mask:

Ok, so the project has been out for a week now, and so far, I can't really complain. I feel kind of badly about making the viewers sit through an entire cycle of sidequest stuff that doesn't HAVE to be done, but I'd honestly rather get some of it out of the way. I expect to continue the game to the first area on Friday (unless I decide to upload multiple videos this next week).

Speaking of multiple video uploads, that is something I will probably implement as time goes on, especially during the Mario Party 6 Extras. I'd like to at least upload 7 videos of this project per week in the hope that I don't take forever to do this project. I'm still trying to workshop a possible schedule, but at this point, it's kind of hard to figure out a plausible way of doing that. I'll probably post a video next weekend of what I plan to do, or I might wait until I make my Summer update video.

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Mario Party 6 - Faire Square:

As usual, possible spoilers for those who haven't watched (since this upload isn't a day old yet).

For something that took 2 playthroughs of the board to finish, I'm satisfied with the videos I ended up with. In my commentary, I actually felt more alive than usual, I actually had some good discussions and rants, and the board was just a refreshing experience. There was actually not much to get mad or angry about...for once! Yeah, there were a few unfortunate mini-game losses, stupid CPU AI, and some bouts of chance and luck, but it honestly felt pretty minimum, especially considering what I normally put up with when it comes to Mario Party.

In fact, because the board went so well, there is nothing I really feel like discussing....what you see in the videos is pretty much what you get.

Next week, channel SlimKirby will have the finale of the Party Mode boards, (can't believe this part of the playthrough is almost over already) CLOCKWORK CASTLE! Then we will have bunches and bunches of extras.

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CrystalStarStudio:

This past week we put another chapter to rest in our glorious TTYD playthrough when ShadowMarioXLI finished Chapter 5 and left Keelhaul Key with the Sapphire Star. Which means, as usual, I'll have to give my thoughts on how the man did.

To be honest, I really wasn't expecting much from ShadowBoy, but I don't mean that in a negative way. I think he has already proven himself to be a quality LPer, and I already felt comfortable putting the project into his capable hands. Overall, he did a really good job, pretty much what I was expecting...nothing to really criticize, negatively or positively...solid work.

And now, before I can finally sink my teeth into this project, we have one more chapter host remaining....the one...the only....PowerToMario. At this point, as with ThePastaKing, my only concern is updates. PTM has shown me in the past that he can make quality videos (Pokemon Silver), and while I don't think his work lately has reflected that project, I think he definitely has plenty of room to seize and succeed for this project, and I think he will. His updates on the other hand, I haven't been as impressed with. I will admit though, it has been a whirlwind of uncertainty with him as of late since he has been trying to work through his final weeks of high school, college orientation, and all that jazz, which is understandable. In the end though, he has given the members of CSS, and all of our viewers, his commitment and his word that he will come through for the project.

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Anyways, I think that is about it for this week's entry. Next week I will probably be on the subject on E3 and all of the wonderful gaming news, particularly for Nintendo. Should be a lot of interesting information! ;)

See you guys next time! Later folks!

6/6/10 - Unmasked

2010-06-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

Welcome back once again to my weekly blog entries, and of course, the first entry of June. This has been a very busy week and weekend for SlimKirby, and not just in real life. I have a lot of stuff to cover in this entry, and I believe I even had a review planned.

First off, as I mentioned, I had a very busy week this past week, as the case for many families who have high school and college graduations and grad parties around the clock. Although there was nobody really in my household who was graduating, my first cousin (who also lives right next door) did, so my family has been pretty busy cleaning up around the house and such since we had the party at our house. It's been pretty hectic, but now it is over. =)

Also this past week, as I think I mentioned in my last entry, or in another entry, or possibly in my videos, I had to help my mom this week at the elementary school she works at. She is a librarian and every year she has to scan and do inventory on all 15,0000+ books. It's a very long and tedious process and I don't mind helping her with it. At this time I've scanned about 10,000 of them, so in a way, it's like I have scanned 1 book for every Youtube subscriber I have. I may have to go back this next week for a little while too.

As for games I've been playing (besides for Youtube and UStream), the big thing going around the Blargg Pit and our game systems is the reawakening of Animal Crossing, mostly brought on by MadameWario's Let's Play of the Gamecube version. I hadn't touched any of my games in a good while, so I decided to start anew in my Gamecube version and then go back in time to the last time I played in my Wii version (leaving the DS version untouched). I have a pretty nice City Folk town at this point, and I'm still working on the GCN town. Another game I have randomly picked up (this one brought on by a game that has been released in the last year) was the first New Super Mario Bros. on the DS. While the game is inferior to it's Wii counterpart, I forgot how much I loved the game and how much fun it is. I will admit that if I ever had the ability to LP DS games (again, NOT USING EMULATORS), New Super Mario Bros. would probably be the first candidate (behind Mario Party DS, since I'd kinda be forced to do that due to the nature of my channel).

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Let's Play The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

I knew this LP was going to happen on my channel eventually, but despite how weird this will sound, I'm kind of in disbelief that I am doing this game. I've always convinced myself that this game was just too long and would be too much of a commitment to keep up with, but now I think I am ready to handle it, no matter how many freaking parts it will take to finish.

For those who know nothing about Majora's Mask, I am not kidding you; this game is is a big one. It has less dungeons than Ocarina of Time and the in-game area is a lot smaller, but the dungeons are more complex, and sometimes even getting to the dungeons can be a chore. Also, don't even get me started on all of the different sidequests. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this game ends up taking me 80 parts (I don't think it will be that long though). I've seen someone complete this game in 64 videos, however, to the extent of what the individual covered, I am unsure. Either way, I'm up for the challenge, and I'll try not to disappoint.

At the time I am writing this entry, I have fully recorded the beginning part (first 3 days as a Deku Scrub), and it ended up taking me about 6 or 7 videos (some of the footage which will be edited out). I think editing will more than likely be the biggest issue with the project, and also the day-to-day scheduling of the game itself, since there are many events in the game that happen on a pretty strict timeframe. I pretty much know how I am going to handle all of the edits and stuff, but I really need to sit down with a guide and plan my movements, especially since I want to cover 100% in the most efficient way (maybe not the most efficient, but most efficient with some degree of improvisation).

Either way, I hope you guys enjoy the project.

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Mario Party 6: Castaway Bay
(Warning! Spoilers for those who may have not watched yet)

I may be walking out of Castaway Bay with a sense of defeat, but I am definitely taking solace in the fact that it wasn't a big defeat. I think I handled the game pretty well from the standpoint of which I could handle it. I was pretty sharp when it came to the mini-games, my strategy was pretty much on point.....it was really the luck factor that screwed me (once again) this time.

First thing's first....the whole identify crisis fail, I'm really not sure what happened there. Basically for those who are in the dark, or who simply forgot, I went into such a tirade about mistaking myself for Toad at various points in the game, quickly releasing it and calling attention to my stupidity. However, during a particular coin hoarding mini-game (Cash Flow), I went the entire mini-game without realizing my character was kicked out close to the very beginning. I seriously must have been drained or completely out of it to make a mistake like that, but there it was, clear as day. When I read the comments, I thought people were just being assholes or trying to make me look stupid......turns out I'm the only one who made myself look stupid there.

As for the loss itself......meh. That is really all I have to say about it. Toad only won the mini-game star because of either the high yield of the battle game (another game where I kind of showed my stupidity), or the Duel mini-game where he pretty much crippled all of Toadette's funds. That was pretty much a win I don't think he deserved. Another thing that pissed me off was the fact that I was pretty much forced to go see Bowser at the very end. Losing that one star pretty much took me out of the game after leading in stars (or co-leading with stars) during 90% of the game itself. The only advantage Toad really had on me was the fact that he had so many coins from that one battle game.

Anyways, next up we have Faire Square, a board I'm kind of looking forward to. Faire Square has always been one of my favorite boards in the entire Mario Party franchise, and while it seems to be built on some degree of luck, coin hoarders can go into the board and dominate with ease. For those wondering why, you will just have to wait and see.

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June 4th Stream Event:

Last Friday I had a stream event, and as usual, I thought I would talk about it briefly. The coverage won't be as extensive as it was in the past. Really, my goal for this stream was to finish the two on-going stream projects I was working on since December. Unfortunately I was unable to achieve this goal, but I did come pretty close. I started off playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii for awhile, collecting star coins needed to finish off the game. While I was able to get through most of it, the need to switch to something else was high, so I figured I would just get Banjo Tooie out of the way since it was the longer game. Despite starting at 6 PM, I wasn't able to finish what I had left until the very early hours of the of the next day, so I stopped after finishing Tooie.

Besides the decent progress, the stream went pretty well. There were a few problems here and there with spammers and people complaining about things for no reason, but that is to be expected. Also, I made another stupid error with the recording of the stream, but this time I just forgot to start the recording. I do apologize to those who hoped to see the entire thing, but there is not much I can do about it. I just wish UStream would be a bit more reasonable with this stuff........

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Super Mario Galaxy 2 Thoughts

WARNING! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS SECTION! IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED, TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY!

Ok, well, first off, I want to clarify that this won't exactly be a "review." I will broadcast my opinions on the game and will mostly be talking about how the game compares with Super Mario Galaxy 1, so don't expect me to cover every exact detail of the game. Really I will just be covering a few different, key topics.

Now, as you would expect, the game itself isn't much different (gameplay-wise) from the first game, so I won't have to go into much detail about that. I will say that they improved a lot of the old mechanics, and a lot of the new mechanics and power-ups that were added were very well implemented. Many people I knew thought the game would just be rejected and unused Super Mario Galaxy 1 concepts, which I thought it was far from. Cloud Mario, although it had the capacity to completely break the game, was a very fun power-up to use, and the beat blocks were also a unique and fun obstacle to interact with. Another thing I was impressed with was how well Yoshi worked out for the game. I honestly didn't like Yoshi in Super Mario Sunshine and felt he was kind of awkward to control. In this game, it almost felt like I was controlling Yoshi back in good old Super Mario World again.

Game length was another thing I was concerned with...although I guess "concerned" isn't necessarily the right word to use here (interested is more appropriate). I thought the first game had an acceptable length and amount of content, although I was dissatisfied with their definition of "242 stars." Their definition was more, "121 stars twice," rather than a full 242. When I heard that Super Mario Galaxy 2 would have 242 stars, I just figured it would be the same thing, however, as rumors went on and as I finished the first part of the game, I found out that the game actually did have 242 unique stars. Now, when I say unique, I mean that there is no star that is the same (no duplicates), but in reality, the 2nd half/set of 120 (the cosmic jewels) are just simply going through old missions and doing repetitive seek-out quests. It makes the game a bit longer, but some may not consider them to be actual missions (due to their short and repetitive nature). However, they do count for the star amount, and getting them all definitely yields a closing act that hardcore players would be proud of. Also, you can't deny that at least they did something else instead of just making you play the same game twice with barely any difference for a very unrewarding finale.

Replayability is something else I am very big on when it comes to video games, and I think that is where this game actually has a few downfalls, but for very understandable reasons. The game itself is huge.....and once you beat it, you probably won't have the drive to beat it a 2nd time so shortly after. However, the game does have a few things people might be interested in, like mission time trials and speed runs (speedrunners would eat this up, especially with possible sequence breaking). For the most part though, I have no desire to play the game for a little awhile, but the game itself was still very enjoyable, so don't get me wrong there.

All in all, how would I compare this game to the first? Honestly, I would say they are about equal. Now, while that may turn off a few people, let me remind you that there have been some who claimed that despite disliking the first Galaxy, they loved the 2nd. Also, some of the major reviewing sites who give Nintendo a hard time with their games have given the game some amazing scores, some of them being perfect 10s. So if you fit into that uncertain category, don't let the fact that the game is a very similar sequel turn you off at all. For me, it's really hard to say. In some ways I think the first game is a little better for creating the concept, while I think the 2nd game could be considered a bit better for improving the gameplay and coming up with more unique and original features. I think the fact that the 2nd game was able to at least match the enjoyment of the first really shows that the game isn't just a game filled with rejected Galaxy 1 concepts...that's just not true, and I think the game proves that.

Among other things, such as graphics and music, and controls, I don't think much really needs to be said about it. I will definitely give credit to Super Mario Galaxy 2 for its soundtrack though, as I will admit that I was very impressed with some of the musical scores.

If I had to give some suggestions to Nintendo about how to improve the formula if they ever did a Super Mario Galaxy 3, well, first I would encourage them to put a hold on the Galaxy name and focus on maybe making a Mario game more like Super Mario 64 and Sunshine (obviously with less emphasis on water pumps). I mean, in a way, the Galaxy games are like that too, but in a way, I think they make those games a bit too linear (Galaxy 2 is a lot less linear than 1 though, I will admit). I mean, one of the things that really made me love Super Mario 64 as a kid was the fact that I could explore these giant worlds (giant at the time) and just walk around without a care in the world. In the Galaxy games, once I advance to the next planet, I'm pretty much stuck unless I can backwards-sequence break. Basically, I think they should maybe focus on a less linear game and maybe take a break with the whole planet hopping and space traveling. Also, as mentioned earlier, while the cosmic jewels were an improvement, I think that maybe the games are restricting themselves a bit too much with the whole 120/ stars concept. In a way, it kind of felt like parts of Galaxy 2 could have been in Galaxy 1 (which makes the "unused and rejected concepts" theory more plausible) and it almost seems like they held back a little just to reach that number. I don't think Nintendo should try to restrict themselves like that and maybe get a little more ambitious with the amount of content for the game. I honestly wouldn't mind having a big game every 5 years rather than 2 restricted games every 2 1/2, and I don't think others would mind either.

Anyways, great job Nintendo on a great sequel. I really enjoyed playing the game, and I'm sure I will enjoy it in many of my future concurrent playthroughs. Keep up the good work, and remember that there is nothing wrong with being a bit more ambitious in some of your games.

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Anyways, that took a lot longer than I expected, so I'm going to end this entry in a very sudden manner.

Bye!

5/30/10 - Blasting Off to a New....Galaxy?

2010-05-30T19:42:00.001-07:00

Hey guys and welcome back to the regularly scheduled blog at its….regularly scheduled time. I had originally decided to postpone this until tomorrow, but then I realized that I had no real excuse not to update, so here I am once again!

Well, as some of you probably know (especially if you watched my last Mario Party playthrough), I did indeed get Super Mario Galaxy 2 last weekend, and I’ve been having a blast playing through it. In fact, I actually completely finished the game no more than a few days ago (I believe 5 days after release). I know…I know, kinda sad that it was the only game I played, and the fact I played so much of it, but hey, it was fun! I would talk about the game and my adventure through it, but I’m actually going to save that next time for my first June entry. That way I can still give some time for those who don’t want to be spoiled by the game, the chance to get through it (or even play it). In fact, I may actually post an entire review dedicated to the game. Just be warned, there will be spoilers!

Besides that though, not much has really been going on in the life of SlimKirby. I’ve just been focusing on preparing for anything and everything. I have a lot of family and friend open houses and graduations to look forward to this week, but they shouldn’t really have any major impact on my daily routine. Also, I’ll be working 2 days this week at my mom’s library doing inventory (I feel guilty about not working during the summer, so I at least try to make some things easier for my parents). Nothing exciting usually happens when I’m there….I’m just scanning barcodes, after all, but at least it feels like I’m helping.

Before I get into Youtube stuff, I just very quickly want to mention that two great individuals passed away this week. Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper….you both will be missed. Gary, we always knew what you were talking bout, even if you didn’t know what others did, and Dennis Hopper’s unforgettable performance as King Koopa in the god awful Super Mario Bros. movie….was just too good to put into visible words.

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Donkey Kong Country:

What more to say? This game is over! Say goodbye to the monkeys for now and stop trying to steal their bananas. Anyways…now time to live through 5 million comments of people asking me when, or if I will ever do the 2nd game.

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Mario Party 6:

*sings*Victory in the snow, is most definitely the way to go.Using my main man Wario…. yadda, yadda, yadda, on with the show!

Once again, sorry if this spoils anything for those who haven’t watched the board yet, but I think I have mentioned before that this blog assumes that the videos I post have been watched. I know assuming isn’t exactly the way to in stuff like this, but it feels kind of pointless to post a giant section if people are just going to skip over it. But whatever….

After the mini-disaster that was E. Gadd’s Garage, it was nice to come into this board and actually have some fun with it. Snowflake Lake has never really been one of my favorite boards, and I actually felt comfortable throughout the whole thing. I had a few scares every now and then (those bonus stars can really throw off your game if you start thinking about every negative possibility), but for the most part, I had a good lead and kept with it.

I’m getting kind of worried about the mini-game count, especially after so many repeat mini-games in this board. I mean, I have them all unlocked, so showing them won’t be an issue, but I’m always worried about how much footage would be needed for a video like that. I mean, I don’t want the video to only have one mini-game, but I don’t want like 20 games either (enough to pretty much make two videos). I suppose I could do what MadameWario did in her Mario Party 2 playthrough and just show off videos of all the mini-games in each category, but then that could create an issue with the DK and Bowser mini-games which only have 3 per piece. Oh well, I will cross that bridge if I need to come to it. For now I’ll just do things my way.

Anyways, I’m looking forward to what I will play next. I honestly couldn’t care less about which board to play because Faire Square is probably my favorite, and I haven’t seen very much of Castaway Bay, so that should be a pretty interesting venture as well. For now though, it’s in the hands of the viewers (although, that could be kind of scary……joking).

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New Project:

The new project I talked about last time, and pretty much have mentioned for quite awhile now, will finally be starting soon. I originally said it would happen in the middle of May, then I said near the end of May, then I said May 30 or 31 would probably be the mark, but now, I can safely say that the project will be starting next Sunday, June 6th. That’s the date, no more delays, it will start then. I’M SERIOUS!

For those wondering about what caused the delay to be so long, I honestly couldn’t say. There have just been a lot of different happenings, mostly with me underestimating the time for certain projects. Also, the whole thing with me, MegaFreak400, ShadowMarioXLI, and 3 servings of Donkey Kong Country, also kind of pushed it back a little (I was hoping to start the DKC project on the 10th, not the 16th). Oh well, no need to worry about it, because it will be here soon!

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This Next Week:

I will be taking somewhat of a break this week, so don’t expect any project uploads from Tuesday-Friday. Tomorrow (Monday) I will be uploading my 10,000th subscriber special (which I hope you guys enjoy btw (despite it not being what I originally promised)), which will take 6 videos (you’ll see why tomorrow). On Friday I will be hosting a stream event on my UStream page (see my Youtube channel for more information). Saturday will of course be the next Mario Party uploads (no postponements or cancellations there), and as I just mentioned, new project on Sunday.

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CrystalStarStudio:

ShadowMarioXLI, despite being the demon of all things maze game related, as been doing a pretty solid job with Chapter 5. I’d say he has about 2 weeks left (around 5 videos) and then we toss things over to PTM. After PTM, we have some kind of warpstar creature with sunglasses hosting…I wonder who that could be. :P

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That’s really about all I have to report. I’ll see you guys next week for more blog updates, and of course, for my Youtube updates this week. If you can, be sure to stop by the stream this Friday, which should be a lot of fun. Also, if you can, ShadowMarioXLI on Youtube also has a stream event tomorrow (May 31st) as well, so you are more than welcome to stop by. I thank you all for reading this week, and of course, thank all of my Youtube subscribers for getting me up to 10,000…you guys are amazing!

-SlimKirby

5/23/10 - Ready for Launch! (Pre-SMG2)

2010-05-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I am making this update rather early this time. As I'm typing, it is 9:00 AM in the morning. Why am I up so early and why am I updating so early? Well, in just a few hours, I'll be heading to Best Buy to pick-up my copy of Super Mario Galaxy 2. The Best Buy in my area opens at 11 AM, so at around 10:45, my dad will be taking me down there. For whatever reason, he wanted to come to, although I'm not surprised, he generally likes walking around Best Buy while I go and do my own thing. I can't believe in just a few hours I will be playing the game I have been ever so anxiously waiting to play since June of last year when it was announced.

I shouldn't have any trouble getting a copy, for one, I live in a very remote part of Indiana, and it's usually not very difficult to get games or systems at their launches. I was able to get a Wii on the very first day of its release, and I only left 2 hours before the store opened (and there were people who camped out for it). Also, I was able to preorder the game, so that should also verify that I won't go empty-handed.

So over the next few days, that should pretty much give you guys insight to what I will be doing. Don't worry about my video uploads, as I am pretty much prepared for this next week already (I have videos for Monday-Friday recorded, in addition to next Sunday's video as well). I'll probably have to take a few breaks in the middle of next week for next weekend's Mario Party 6 board and then what I have planned for my 10,000 Subscriber special.

Besides all of the Galaxy hype, I can't really say that much has been going on. I'm really just trying to keep up with house chores my parents have been giving me. They are definitely trying to guilt me until I get a job, but there is not much I can do about it....getting a summer job these days is near impossible. People can't afford to hire, and when they do, they have people already lined-up in front of the "Help Wanted" sign, people who aren't looking for a summer job, but one to keep to actually support the family. I swear, the economy right now is terrible. Thankfully though, I have gotten some time to myself to chillax and hang out with some old friends. It's been good, and that is all I can really say at this point. Things can still get pretty interesting though, as there are a lot of things coming up.....family and friend graduations, summer visits from relatives who live many states away, summer activities and festivals....you name it. :P

Also, as for the future of this blog, I still plan to incorporate some changes, starting in June. After my little wake-up call last week, I have gotten a few more opinions, most of which say the blog is running fine the way it is and that I shouldn't change it. I do appreciate the help guys, and I will take your words into consideration, but it's not like I'm going to completely alter it. I guess "making changes" weren't exactly the words I was looking for...moreso I'm just going to be adding to the blog, not really changing it. Maybe trying to address certain things from more personal levels, or maybe for what I already address, try to address them with even more content. I dunno...maybe I'm just paranoid that I am not really fulfilling the purpose of a blog? I am a bit of a perfectionist after all when it comes to certain things.

Anyways, got quite a few things to talk about today in terms of Youtube projects!

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Mario Party 6:

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Well, E. Gadd's Garage certainly sucked!

Sorry if that spoiled anything for anyone who hasn't watched yet, but honestly, for some of the things that happened, you would have to see to believe it anyways. At least I can take solace in the fact that it was a pretty close game up to the end (at one point during the bonus star give-away, 3 people had the same amount of stars, and I was one of them, having the most coins as well). As most Mario Party games go though, it all came down to pretty much luck......luck with happening and orb stars. And the ironic thing is that if they still had the Coin Star, I would have won the game, hands down. Oh Mario Party 6...

So many random moments in this playthrough though, such as the 1-coin duel I mistakingly made without realizing, and the freaking Pixel Perfect incident with Boo and his shenanigans. When I almost drop the F-Bomb, you know that something ridiculous has just happened.

Kinda looking forward to what board I will be playing this next week. Mostly because no matter what board is chosen, it will feature a new Mario Party play mechanic, which should be fairly interesting to watch. Of the ones that are left, Faire Square is probably my favorite, and Snowflake Lake my least favorite.

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Donkey Kong Country:

I know I use this expression a lot, but would you believe me if I said Donkey Kong Country will end next Sunday? Well, because whenever I use that expression I'm usually referencing when I will be done with aforementioned game, you guys should now realize that the game will indeed end on Sunday. As I mentioned earlier, I have all of this next week's videos recorded (except for Mario Party 6), and I had just enough to squeeze the project into 13 videos, which is about what I expected. This of course will not be the shortest project I have done (Adventures of Lolo 1 and 2 and Super Mario Land 2 still have this beat), but it's still really short when you look a the majority of my projects.

I don't really want to go into much detail about the videos, as they pretty much speak for themselves. I think I ended the project pretty well...almost in the same fashion (in terms of skill) as I started the project, which in retrospect, is kind of weird how all of my fail came into play in the middle of the project.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoy what is left of the project as much as I enjoyed recording it!

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New Project:

Well, with Donkey Kong Country almost over, some of you guys are probably wondering about what will come next. I've been hyping this monster of an LP for many months now, and I still can't believe it's about to come to fruition. As usual, I'm going to stay pretty silent about it, but next week, I may decide to drop some hints.

This project may be a hit or miss project, but it is a risk I am willing to take for a game that I think is truly spectacular. As for start dates, I mentioned that it would happen right after I finish Donkey Kong Country, but I may delay that for just a little. For one, as mentioned earlier, I am almost in the presence of 10,000 subscribers (less than 150 to go), and I'm probably going to release that special during that week and then hold off on the new project while I'm still trying to get Galaxy 2 out of my system. On the other hand, there is really nothing keeping me from releasing the project, and in a way, it makes sense not to hold off, just for the sake of completion (I have many other projects I want to do, after all). Oh well, I guess for now I will just do what I am most comfortable with.

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Well, that's about it for this entry. I'm going to go take a shower and get ready for one of the biggest purchases of this summer vacation. Take care everyone and I will see you next week when I have Galaxy 2 on the mind. :P

5/16/10 - Party in the Jungle

2010-05-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

After a week that seemed to never end, which can either be good, considering I'm on summer break now, or bad, considering I did nothing really that exciting, here I am with another entry.

First off, I do appreciate those who gave me ideas of what to do with the blog...all 1 of you. I realize that my audience here is definitely not as big as my Youtube audience, but still, with 101 followers, I honestly did expect a lot more. However, no big concern.....maybe you guys like the blog how it is? I personally won't be making any big changes until June, so if you have some ideas, feel free to leave comments, I'd gladly like to listen to them.

As for other things going on...not really that much. I'd rather not write a book about every little thing I did this past week, so I won't.

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Mario Party 6:

It's been a long time coming, and the coming has finally...come. And let me tell you, for a game I was very skeptical about at first, this first recording session ended up going all right...with the exception of having 9 videos to record, edit, and upload, but that is just the way of Mario Party.

This probably had to be one of my most epic comebacks. Maybe not as epic as the final turn chance time in Spiny Desert (Mario Party 3), but at least in this one I used forms of strategy and strategic planning, something I don't get to show very often in my videos. Although Peach acting stupid in the duel mini-game definitely hurt any chances for her to win or at least cancel out my victory.

And thanks to Mario Party, once again I was able to obtain quite the number of views this weekend, breaking into the Top 60 - Most Viewed Directors on Youtube for today (Top 25 for just Gaming channels), and that could still increase as I still have 2 hours of this day left. This is my highest honor on Youtube thus far, and I expect it to be even higher in the coming weeks. Thanks to everyone for making this possible!

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Donkey Kong Country:

I wonder who saw this coming....and not just the Let's Play. For those who don't know, in addition to me starting a Let's Play to this game, ShadowMarioXLI and MegaFreak400 also started their replays of Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 (respectively). I will say that this wasn't a total coincidence as we made it out to be, but these projects were planned around the same time...we just made some adjustments to make them all happen at once.

Looking forward to this Let's Play, and at this point I do have the next 2 videos recorded. I actually ended up having some problems with the next two videos, which hopefully won't ruin the videos for you guys, and will hopefully not happen in future videos. I still got the videos recorded though, so i guess that is the important thing.

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May 14th UStream Event:

Last Friday I had my first stream event of the summer. Usually with my streams, I experience several different ups and downs, and this stream was no exception.

I started off with New Super Mario Bros. Wii again, and was able to complete the game in this session. I will more than likely have a future stream where I will end up getting what I need of the star coins. Things went pretty well until the last two levels when I started sucking for no reason. Then I played 45 minutes of Mario Kart Wii (which somehow won the poll). Nothing really exciting during that time. Next, I went on to Banjo Tooie, which I think was the highlight of the stream...unfortunately I didn't even record half of it, which really pissed me off. Oh well, I guess not many people will want to watch or rewatch that. After Tooie, it was really just a bunch of random game playing consisting of Goldeneye and Pokemon Snap, nothing really worth mentioning, although I did beat a few 00 Agent missions in Goldeneye. =)

Overall, a pretty good stream event. Really quickly, I would like to thank youtube users Odinspack33, darkmindedsith, and ShotzRox for spending time at the stream and also assisting with moderating and alerting the mods of specific problems. I really do appreciate it.

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Nothing much to say about anything else. I should be hitting 10,000 subscribers pretty soon, and I have a few things planned for that, and a few other LPs planned for the summer. And of course, keep a look out for the live stream events, as those should be a lot of fun. For now though, I'm going to end this entry as it is. I will see you guys next week. Later folks!

5/9/10 - Feels Like Summer in May

2010-05-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

Note: I know this entry is kind of late (especially since it says 5/9/10 instead of 5/10/10 in the title), but I didn't get home until really late last night and honestly didn't have enough time to finish the blog before I had to go to bed. I tried to finish it up before going to sleep, but I was fighting a losing battle with my sleepiness and collapsed in exhaustion several times while trying to finish it up. So I figured I would just put it on hold and update it when I woke up.

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IM DONE WITH SCHOOL!

Well, for now anyways. In 3 months time I will be back again, but let's not think about it.

I've had a pretty big weekend actually, and it all started with a miserable Friday morning. On Friday I had two final exams (it would have been 3, but thankfully my professor allowed me to take it earlier), and while one went well, the other one was a trainwreck. In fact, I'm still unsure of what I got on the final and am waiting in fear for the grade to appear on my online transcript. Thankfully my other good grades throughout the semester will balance it out, but still, it's not a good feeling. Besides that class though, I've done pretty well on my other classes, meeting and actually surpassing my expectations in a few instances (got a 81% on my Calculus II exam :O). Anyways, after the drama that was that morning, my mom came down to help me get packed and moved out of the dorms so I could go home. This process, although annoying at times, actually went pretty smooth, and everything was ready before the 2 hour mark, and I was home in no time. Then, Friday night I had some visitors, involving my best friend from high school and my uncle. It's always great to see and catch up with people from your past ain't it?

Ironically, Saturday was filled with more packing and moving, as I had to help move my grandmother from assisted living back to her house (which sounds good on paper, but honestly, we are tired of moving her from place to place (she is a strong-willed lady, but she can't live on her own in her condition and will only have to be transferred back in a month's time, I hate to say). The other parts of the day consisted of driving there and back.

And today, I actually had a pretty good day. My parents and I went out for a good ol Mother's Day dinner and then my dad and I stopped at Best Buy and got some new electronics to play with. Most notably, we got a new router for home, because our old one was on the fritz. Hopefully this new one minimizes disconnects and can hold my connection steady for these upcoming summer stream events. I also preordered Super Mario Galaxy 2 and expect to pick it up when it releases in 2 weeks.

Now, I don't know about you, but that was a pretty schedule-packed couple of days, wouldn't you say? Damn straight it was, and if you are anyone who thinks I only sit at a computer and upload videos all day, you are sadly mistaken. Not sure why I decided to bring that up....it's just that I've seen a lot of those comments as of late on my channel and through my messages. It doesn't really bother me because I barely pay attention to those people anyways, but it just fascinates me how stupid and illogical those people can be when they think they are doing a world a favor by insulting others. It's just pathetic and I pity anyone at Youtube (or anyone on the Internet for that matter) who does that.

Another thing I pity is all the freaking ignorance-filled comments I get all the time (a different kind of ignorance though). I don't think I could logically give a figure of how many people have asked me when Mario Party 6 is starting, and just other stuff I shouldn't have to answer, yet I get asked anyways. I am a really organized guy...I think that is obvious from my channel guidelines, my schedule, and the way I handle obstacles and inconveniences. I think I can safely say I am rock-solid in that department without objection. The only thing is, how do people miss something so obvious from someone so clear? I just don't get it....

Anyways, before I get into my projects and all that other good stuff, I just, very quickly want to give a few plugs and shout-outs. First off, I would like to welcome back durden77 to the world of LPing! After taking a year off from uploading anything (mostly due to computer issues), the man is back, continuing what he does best.....even if his best is talking about a Mario game to thousands of people on a video website. So far, he has definitely been keeping up with his uploads and his project updates, still sounding like pretty much the same guy as he left us early. Seriously though, if you have no idea who durden77 is, definitely check out a few videos of his. I'm sure they will give you a chuckle.

Another thing I would like to do is congratulate PowerToMario on getting his 1,000th subscriber. PTM really hasn't been bringing his game when it comes to his videos and updates, but I got to give him some credit where it was due, and he did have a really good Pokemon Silver Let's Play. With other projects and his CSS turn approaching, I'm sure we can expect more from him.........as long as he updates. :P

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Advance Wars:

The only thing I have to say here is, "ITS OVER! HELL YEAH!"

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New Projects:

In less than a week, I will not only have Mario Party 6 up and running, but another project as well. I know I promised some hints, but I think I changed my mind on the matter because whenever I try, I spill the guts in an unintentional way. Not this time I'm afraid....you guys will just have to wait.

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CrystalStarStudio:

GaiaCrusher9 has just one more video, and expect it to be uploaded Tuesday due to a scheduling snafoo caused by ShadowMario41. Which reminds me, it will be his turn next (oh god....)

Anyways, I think I will quickly talk about GaiaCrusher9 for this entry. Now, when we started this project, I had certain expectations for some, and higher for others (being my partners in this project). Gaia was kind of in the middle for me....someone who you know would get the job done, but how he would do it...another story completely. Right now, I really have to give the man props for the great work he has done. Not only has he been efficient in his updates and the way he handles certain situations, but he is quite entertaining as well. In fact, I believe one day (I don't remember what numbered video it was) I declared a video he uploaded to be the best of the project thus far. It just kept my attention and also kept me laughing from the moment it started, to the second it finished. Great work Catsun! Your abilities have truly shone today!

ShadowMarioXLI has some tough shoes to fill! ;)

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Well, that's all Im going to talk about in this entry, BUT, I will leave this entry on a small note about what to expect in the future. In an earlier entry, not so long from this entry, I mentioned something about making a few changes to the blog to make it more organized and to feature some unique content every week instead of just giving the boring old Youtube updates. I do plan to keep that promise, but I would somewhat like some feedback here before I start incorporating these said changes. So if you are someone who has an account (I'm not sure if you need a blog..just a Google account), and you regularly read this blog, please, give me your thoughts in a comment as a response to entry, about what you would like to see from this blog in the future. Your responses can consist of anything you want, as long as the topics remain somewhat appropriate to what I do here (remember, I am someone who plays video games for Youtube, not a journalist).

Thank you for your time, this has been SlimKirby, and I will see you again next weekend!

5/2/10 - May I Give a Warm Welcome to May?

2010-05-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Another month has finished, another month is upon us.

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

In just one week, I will be updating my blog from the comfort of my own home. Sure, I've made updates from there before, but now on a regular basis (for 3 1/2 months anyways). I just have to get through a week of final exams (I'm looking pretty good as far as my grades are concerned), and then summer vacation will be upon me!

The Super Mario Galaxy 2 countdown is also getting smaller, with only 3 weeks left. I've been thinking....maybe when I get the game, I should do a log of my progress on here (or possibly make a twitter account). As far as LPing the game, it's definitely something I would like to do, but I would honestly rather do a Super Mario Galaxy LP first. Before anyone gets any ideas, Galaxy is not one of my next LPs, nor do I really have a Galaxy LP planned for this year. Maybe in 2011???? ;)

Also in game news, I have overcome the challenge of Red in Pokemon Heart Gold, winning with my team of Level 72-74s. It was quite challenging, especially considering the levels he had on me, but my Pokemon were up to the challenge. He really should have evolved his Level 88 Pikachu -_-.

Ok, onto Youtube stuff.

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Super Bomberman 2:

Game finished! Nothing left to say. For all comments regarding my feelings about the project and future endeavors in the Bomberman series....you honestly didn't watch the videos I posted because I discussed that already. :P

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Advance Wars:

This will be the last week of Advance Wars, and boy am I pleased that this game is finally over. I loved doing the project and I'm glad many people enjoyed it, but I've been ready to put a close to this project weeks ago. This project will officially close on Friday when I post the extra videos. However, while Friday will be the closing, and Wednesday will be the final Campaign Mode videos, it will be the videos that go up tomorrow that will be the ones to look forward to, in a 6-video upload, a mass uploading on my channel really only seen during Mario Party projects. However, those six videos alone can't tell the story of the process I had to go through. In fact, let's take a look at how this mission went down.

Thursday, April 22nd - This was my first attempt at practicing the mission. I did pretty well considering what happened, but when I finished the mission, I had a "jawdrop" moment when my Technique and Speed scores were pretty much perfect, yet my power score was almost 0. Because of the low power score, I was only able to get a B-Rank, which was not acceptable in my eyes.

Friday, April 23rd - It was this day that I figured out the reason for my very low power score. Apparently the reason my score was so low was because the kills you make against Sturm have to be gotten with Andy in order for the power score to be graded, and I pretty used Andy as a punching bag in the mission, which was more than likely the reason why I got a B. I went ahead and tried the mission again, getting a better power score, but a worse Technique score (since I was putting Andy in the battle a lot more). Once again, another B Rank. =(

Saturday, April 24th - At this point I was tired of retrying the mission again and again, so I figured I would do more research before I would pick up the game again. I also decided to have a preview video on the Sunday before I post the mission (which went up today). This video would explain some other things about the final mission (how to get specific allies) and basically show the layout of the battle itself. The reason I did this, not just because it would save time explaining it in the actual videos, but it also allowed me to actually try to do the commentary live, when I was originally considering post-commentary. It was going to be a challenge, but I was up for it.

Monday, April 26th - I finally went back to the game to try again, and unfortunately, I was still only to get a B Rank, but this was the best attempt thus far. I tried a new strategy using the left-side ally, which ended up working pretty well for me, which altered my strategies for the next attempts.

Wednesday, April 28th - Once again, had another attempt, but this time, things definitely went in my favor. I was able to not only complete the mission in the way and in the time I wanted, but I was also able to notice specific patterns in the enemy AI that I could exploit. After this attempt (ended up being an A Rank, which surprised the crap out of me), I decided that the next time would be the real time.

Friday, April 30th - The time had come! I was ready! Sturm was going down! I was going to complete this project! And sure enough, after the recording stopped, I was done. I'm not going to spoil the surprise of what I got in this mission (you will have to wait til tomorrow to see the final ranking), but things went well, especially considering I did it on my first recorded attempt of the mission (I've had a few missions where it took more than 1 recorded attempt, even after practicing). I got scared at the end though, because my recording actually screwed up at the very end while it was saving, but thankfully it was only the last minute or so (none of which was part of the actual battle). Then on Saturday, (yesterday), I did all the editing, and I am now prepared to post tomorrow!

See? Now do you see why I've been putting so much emphasis on this mission? It's tough people, really tough! Even experts of the game, and those terrible elitists, who may claim that the mission is easy as pie, probably struggled on it during their first playthroughs as well. You honestly can't say I'm exaggerating when the proof is in the pudding. Either way though, I'm glad Im finished with the mission, and at this point, the project (because I have filmed everything else).

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Back-Up Progress:

I haven't been able to make any major strides in my video backing-up on SlimKirby64 (neither has MegaFreak400, since he has also been really busy as of late), but Super Mario RPG is almost finished, and after that, I will only have Mario Party 3, Super Mario World, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and The Maze Game left.

For those wondering about Donkey Kong 64, I'm actually not going to be backing those videos up. I know I said I would, but I'm seriously thinking about doing a replay sometime in the future. I know I originally claimed that the project was fine the way it was, and that Yoshi's Island would be my final replay, but looking back on DK64, it is in pretty bad quality. I will make the official announcement when I'm ready, but I think you can definitely expect a replay sometime in the future. Right now, I'm not even sure when I could stick another long game into my schedule (especially with what I have planned at the end of May).

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Well, here is another short entry from the Slimster this week. I would write more, but I have to start studying for some final exams I have tomorrow (plus I have to make sure I am ready for the monster upload tomorrow as well). Thanks for joining me this week, and I will see you guys next week!

Later folks!

4/25/10 - April in the Morning, April in the Evening, April at Suppertime!

2010-04-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

(Not sure why I referenced the Bagelbites commercial in my intro.....)

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

The first thing I would like to do is apologize. Not for making this entry late or anything, but I promised you guys I would have a topic prepared for this entry, but unfortunately I do not. I am not quite sure what exactly happened, but whatever I had planned to talk about, I just simply forgot. I’m not trying to give you guys bull crap or anything like that….I honestly and legitly (which doesn’t seem to be a word) forgot and I feel embarrassed by it. I’m not going to let it eat on my conscious too much though, as I have some major overhauls and plans for this blog in the future, some of which you may enjoy. I’m not going to go into very much detail about this, but I will say that it will be a lot more organized, and organization seems to be my biggest problem with the blog itself, along with finding topics of discussion, for that matter…

Anyways, the countdown for summer vacation continues as I only have 2 weeks left of classes (one of them being a modified week for final exams). As I have said many times, I am very much looking forward to being done for the semester. I’m still working hard on my Pokemon team for Heart Gold….really only because it is going to be awhile before I beat the entire team. Red has some very high-leveled Pokemon afterall, and I’m only confident in the abilities of 4/5 team members. The only reason I say 4/5 instead of 5/6 or 4/6 is because I’m not teaching Rock Climb to any of my team members, and unfortunately you need that move to actually advance through Mt. Silver (which sucks), but the member I had to bench wouldn’t be that helpful anyways (it would, but it’s my most original moveset). Again, I’ll maybe talk about my team some other time.

Anyways, let’s get to the Youtube updates, I guess….

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Super Bomberman 2:

The recordings have been finished, and they will be posted daily from Monday to Friday. The project will be done on Friday, so hooray for that!

The videos themselves went pretty smoothly and the commentary wasn’t too bad. However, you can only get “so excited” about Bomberman Battle Mode where there is only one human player involved….

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Advance Wars:

I know I said I wouldn’t talk about this project this week, and I won’t, but I’ll quickly mention that I have completed the mission successfully a few times on my own. I haven’t made my way to the desired rank just yet, but I’ll start looking through some guides and some tips this next week.

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CrystalStarStudio:

GaiaCrusher9 has started his chapter, and has been doing a great job! He also has informed me that he doesn’t have too many videos, so he may be done sooner than you think! =O

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Future Stream Event:

I think I’ve decided that I am going to host a stream event on the 14th of May (yes, the day before Mario Party 6). I would host it earlier on in the week, but I would be concerned with attendance due to the fact it would be during a school day and night. This will mark the first stream of the summer, and Im going to see if I can sit down and make some progress with my current stream games (New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Banjo Tooie (maybe Diddy Kong Racing again if it is in high demand, because that was fun last time)). I’m still wondering if streaming Galaxy 2 would be a good idea when it releases, but I may decide against that because I don’t want to spoil the game for anyone. We’ll see what happens though. :P

I’m not sure if this date will end up working or not. It really depends on what my parents have in store for me during that first week of May (last year they tried to force me into doing substitute teaching for my old Jr. High school (didn’t go through though). I would like to get a few streaming events done this summer. I usually have a good time doing stream events. =)

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Well, I hate to leave you with a short entry today, but I’m all out of creative writing juices, and I should probably get to bed as well (I have class in 6 and a half hours, as I am closing this out). See you guys next week, and I hope you enjoy battle mode.

Later folks!
-SlimKirby

4/18/10 - We Don't Need No Information! (Even Though it Seems Like That is All I Gave)

2010-04-18T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

Another week down the drain, which means it is time for another blog entry. I’m personally still very much looking forward to getting out of school for the summer (although who isn’t?), and am excited to report that I just have 3 weeks left! So basically, after today, two more entries of complaining about it, and then I’m off for summer. =D

Not much has really been happening in my world. Last week I had the whole thing with my laptop being stupid, and I’m happy to report that I have it back now with those problems being fixed. Although most of my problems were caused by wear-and-tear damages (battery getting old, and the backlight getting loose), I’m still going to take more careful measures with my laptop, as I want these problems to not happen in the future. So I’m going to be a lot more cautious with laptop space and how long I leave the laptop on and active. Again, not sure if these things would contribute to making sure these things don’t happen in the future, but you never know.

In the world of Nintendo, we have been getting some interesting information as of late. The new generation of Pokemon games have been announced, “Pokemon White and Black,” and some images have also been shown as well. Since I’ve been on a bit of a Pokemon high as of late, I can definitely confirm that these games will be mine once they release (not sure when this will be though). Also speaking of new releases, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is right around the corner as well. It’s April 18th when I post this entry, and the game releases in just 35 days (unless we get a very, very late and unlikely delay). I loved the original Super Mario Galaxy, and I am very much looking forward to the sequel. I may even go to a midnight release of the game (I haven’t decided this yet though). Another thing Nintendo has announced recently is the next handheld. Now, I’m not going to go into this very much, because I want to save this for a rant sometime in the future, but I will say that I am not very happy about it. Save all your comments and questions for when I actually do discuss it, because I don’t have all the information myself.

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Advance Wars:

What would you guys say to this statement?

“Advance Wars will be finished in 2 update weeks.”

The reason I ask is because that statement is now actually applicable at this point, believe it or not. This very long project, which I’ve been talking about since November, and which I’ve started LPing in February, is coming to a close very soon. However, don’t assume that everything will be done before April ends, even though I did technically say 2 weeks.

This next week will feature the last two missions of Sami’s path in the Green Earth strand of missions, and Saturday and Sunday will feature the last two missions before what is the hardest, and longest, mission in the entire game, and what may be one of the hardest missions in the entire Advance Wars series. I’m putting a lot of emphasis on the difficulty for a very important reason. After this week, I am going to be taking a week off from the project so I can practice, and practice, and practice. This mission is not going to be a piece of cake….far from it. In fact, I may consider dropping the “S-Rank” challenge if I just can’t handle it. I won’t set that into stone just yet, but just know that this is going to be a huge mountain to climb if I want to finish this game.

I will probably not discuss Advance Wars next week, because I won’t have anything on the horizon for the coming week, but just know the project will be coming to a close very soon.

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Super Bomberman 2:

Ironically, Super Bomberman 2 only has about two weeks of content left as well (one if I wasn’t doing Advance Wars), and in two weeks time, I will also be done with this game as well. Unlike Advance Wars though, I won’t be taking a week break from the game.

Although….I will be taking two days off. Tomorrow I will post what is left of the Single Player game, which will consist of two short 5-7 minute videos. I didn’t plan to do it this way, it’s just the unfortunate way the project came out to be. So tomorrow, I will post the last few levels, all of the final bosses, and the credits.

I won’t have any updates or any videos on Wednesday or Friday (which gives me an excuse to work on something for 9000 subscribers, since that is also approaching). However, when I return that next Monday, I will start the Battle Mode videos. Since I am taking that week off from Advance Wars, I will be posting the videos daily. As I will say in tomorrow’s videos, I’m not sure how long Battle Mode will take, but expect me to be done either Thursday or Friday (Saturday (May 1st)), the latest.

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Future Project Dates:

For those who haven’t been checking my channel page as of late, I’ve been hinting at some possible, future LP dates, along with the conclusions of Super Bomberman 2 and Advance Wars. As usual, I’m not going to give very much information about this stuff, put I will go over a few things.

Mario Party 6:

Earlier on in the week, I announced I would be starting a short LP on May 10th. However, unfortunately that date is not going to work anymore, so Mario Party 6 will be the first project I start during my summer vacation. The project is unfortunately not going to start on May 8th, but it will start on May 15th. I know that is a few weeks away, but please understand that I can’t afford to start it any earlier than that. I just have too much going on. And trust me, I am aware of the very large following I have who want me to start this game as soon as possible. I’m so aware, that I want them all to shut up about it. =)

Like Mario Party 5, I will update one board of the project every Saturday, and once I get to the extra content, I will probably upload more.

Short Let’s Play:

I will be starting another short LP, ironically on the day after I start Mario Party 6, on May 16th. I would start it on the 17th, but I actually want to finish this game as soon as possible, and 16th is the earliest I can start it. I would go into more detail about why the date is so important, but that would ruin the surprise. Let’s just say I have something planned. ;)

This game will be uploaded on a daily basis (except Saturdays when I would be doing Mario Party 6). As for length, I predict around 12 or 13 videos.

Long Let’s Play:

As soon as I finish the aforementioned “Short Let’s Play,” I will be starting another one shortly after…one that will actually take more than 10-20 videos. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this game gets video numbers in the 50s or 60s, but we’ll wait to see what happens. Once again, not going to give very much information about this game, but I am very much looking forward to it.

I plan to start this one as soon as I finish the short LP. If I had to make a prediction, I would say May 30th, but don’t assume that date.

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CrystalStarStudio:

Congratulations ThePastaKing for not only completing Chapter 3 of our Thousand-Year Door project, but for also doing a hell of good job with it.

As I’ve said before, I was concerned about putting PK in the pilot seat at first. Not that he wasn’t qualified or not good at doing Let’s Plays, but if you don’t know ThePastaKing, let’s just say he’s not the fastest uploader. I think his unfinished Ogre Battle LP, after at least 8 months of it being in session, with less than 20 videos, speaks for itself. Uploading was really my only concern with PK, just because he’s just not good at sticking to a schedule, and sticking to one was very vital and important to this project.

However, with the completion of his chapter on Friday, with no missed updates whatsoever, ThePastaKing sure proved me wrong, and I’m glad he did. There were a few times where he was a bit late in uploading (a few days where the upload didn’t go through until the following day), but the fact of the matter is that he still met the 3-per-week goal that we set for the project. And even when he was late, he was always there to explain and put us at ease, letting us know that the episode was coming. That may be a bit unprofessional, but at least he didn’t give up. He stuck with it and did what we expected him to do.

Also to PK’s credit, the videos themselves were quite enjoyable to watch. Usually when you have a LPer like PK, someone with a relaxed nature and a somewhat structurally informal way of doing things, you always run the risk of having very stale and boring videos. However, that doesn’t seem to work or apply to PK. He just has a quality about him that makes him enjoyable to watch, and because of that, I’m glad to have him on the CSS team…..as I’m sure everyone else is too.

Next up in the project we have GaiaCrusher9…..get the cake ready! :P

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Video Back-Up Progess:

Yes, I am still backing-up videos on SlimKirby64, and for anyone interested, I’m up to over 700 videos, which means I can’t possibly have too many videos left, right? Well, I know I have 1200+ on my main channel right now, but keep in mind that I will not be backing up any of the Brawl Custom videos, the random wifi videos, the announcement videos, and all that other stupid crap, so if I had to make an estimation, I think I have about 200 left. We are getting down to the wire in number of projects though, with only 6 or 7 left. Once again, thanks to MegaFreak400 for helping me….even though you sunk my battleship! =(

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Next Week:

On next week’s blog entry, I will have a topic in mind (although it relates to Youtube…nothing interesting), so my focus will mostly be on that. However, if I’m feeling good, I may drop a few other hints about my upcoming LPs, and other stuff you can expect at channel SlimKirby!

Anyways, since this word document is quickly approaching the 5th page by this point, I think it’s as good a time as any to end this entry. Talk to you guys next week, and have a good week ahead!

-SlimKirby

4/11/10 - The Screen May Go Black, But I Will Still Move Forward

2010-04-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, SlimKirby here up for another blog entry!

What can I say about this past week? “Gag me with a mechanical pencil!” I’ve had some crappy weeks this past semester….I’ve had sick weeks, I’ve had weeks with nothing but nonstop homework, and I even had a week of recovery from a kidney stone, but honestly, this one may take the cake. I mean, the work load was manageable, and I didn’t have any issues with Youtube stuff, but it was just a very mediocre week. Also, the fact that my laptop has been acting up (to the point where I will need to get it repaired this next week), does not help matters in the slightest. Basically, here is what happened….

A few Wednesdays ago (March 31st), I noticed that my laptop was starting to act funny when I turned it on and all of the sudden it was still dark on the screen. I restarted the machine and sure enough, it was fine after that. A few days later, I noticed it did the same thing again. However, the computer was clearly on and working…..the screen was just so dark that I could barely see what was on it. After adjusting the brightness, the problem fixed itself, but as the days went on, the problem became even more uncooperative. On Monday (April 5th), I took it in for a diagnostic, just to find out that the backlight to the screen was dysfunctional. Now, while it still works on occasion, it still needs to be repaired, so this next week I am going to be without my computer. Thankfully, the computer tech place at my college should allow loaners, so I may be able to have a temporary computer, but as far as my videos are concerned, I’m going to be out of luck, but I’ll get into that later.

So anyways, the computer place told me that the repair should take anywhere from 3 to 5 days in theory, so hopefully I will get my computer back this week. However, I can’t say for sure, just yet. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens. Tonight I will be a posting a notification video on my account that will talk about this situation in more detail. For those of you wondering if I will have to go a few days without updates, I will say that it is a possibility, but only in dire circumstances.

As far as other stuff goes, there is not much to talk about. For some reason, I started a playthrough of Super Mario RPG again. Don’t ask me why, but it was a game I was interested in playing again, and the fact I have it on my Wii console through the Virtual Console is nice, because it’s such a great game that I have easy access to. Going through the game again has brought back memories, and not just of the game, but my LP of the game. The project itself, looking back at it, was nothing spectacular, but back in the day, it was one of the first projects on my channel that brought me into the LP radar. Perhaps maybe a replay project in the future? Who kows?

I’ve also been working on Pokemon Heart Gold still. Last night I actually finished up getting all of the Johto gym badges, and now I am en route to training for the Elite Four. My team is nothing spectacular, but I may go into more detail about it later on, but for right now, I’m keeping it a secret.

Anyways, let’s talk about Youtube!

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Advance Wars:

I still have a few obstacles in the way, but this project probably won’t be around for that much longer. The computer repairs could possibly extend this a bit, but I still say this project should be completed before my spring semester ends (May 7th).

Super Bomberman 2:

Halfway done? Well, I never expected this project to go on for very long, but for those of you predicting a 7 video project (for at least the single player mode), you are advised to think again. I said from the beginning that Super Bomberman 2 would take longer to finish no matter what. Yes, the first game has six worlds, and this one has 5, but the puzzles in the 2nd game are just enough to extend the length. Also, the bosses are a bit more slow-paced. If I had to make a prediction, I would say 9 videos, but it is still up in the air at this point. Also, don’t forget that I also have Battle Mode to do as well, which will be covered in the same fashion.

Back-Up Progress:

I can’t really say that I’ve made that much more progress on this front, but me and MegaFreak400 are most certainly getting there. I’ve been working on the biggies, and Mega has been working on the smaller projects, and with only a few big projects left, and the number of small projects getting even smaller, I predict to be caught up during the summer (maybe even before then :O).

CrystalStarStudio:

Believe it or not, ThePastaKing just has one week left, and once again we will be switching hosts. I’ll talk more about ThePastaKing next week when he is actually done. However, he has done some great work.

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Yeah, kind of a short entry today, but I went into some big discussions last weekend, so I figured I would give myself a little break this week. Next week should be a big week, with April being about half-way over, and with all the stuff I have planned for May coming ever so much closer. Perhaps I will even drop some hints? Well, anything is possible, so I guess you will just have to wait until next week!

Later folks!

4/4/10 - I Am Not a Fool......An April Fool

2010-04-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

It’s been two weeks since my last update, and I do apologize for the long wait, but last Sunday ended up in disaster for me personally, and by the time things calmed down, it was already the middle of the week and I didn’t feel like updating. Basically what happened was on Sunday morning, I had to be ambulanced to the hospital because I had a kidney stone. However, the stone is gone and I am fine, so there is no need to go into very much detail about it.

Anyways, I am very thrilled to say I have about a month of college left before my summer break, which is great. I just have to get through a few weeks of work here and there and then a week of finals, but then I’m good.

Anyways, in my last update I mentioned that I got Pokemon Heart Gold. One thing I forgot to mention is that I actually purchased two other games alongside it. First, I also purchased “The Legendary Starfy,” a Nintendo DS platformer. Although this was the first Starfy release in the US, there are actually 4 other games there were only released in Japan, so the series itself has actually been going on for a few years by this point. For those who don’t know who or what Starfy is, he actually made an assist trophy cameo in Super Smash Bros. Brawl (the spinning star character). Anyways, I gotta say, for a game I was kind of skeptical of at first, I was actually pleasantly surprised with the game. It was a pretty unique platforming game with great music and graphics and some cool characters. Not only that, but once you finish the game, there is also plenty of replay value too, so there is plenty to enjoy in this title. I definitely recommend the game to anyone who wants to try a unique platforming title.

I also purchased, finally, after what seems like several years now, Mario Party DS. People consider me to be the Mario Party guy and I hadn’t even gotten or played the DS version until just recently. However, that has now changed! Anyways, I haven’t played much of it yet, but I gotta say, I do love the mini-games. I just wish the boards were more interesting and less frustrating.

Anyways, that’s all I have to mention about video games. The next and last thing I want to quickly mention is March Madness. While I am not a big sports fan, I do get into March Madness (for those who don’t know and who more than likely live in another country, it’s a college basketball tournament thing where people make brackets based on what teams they think will win specific games and enter contests where they compete and compare their brackets with others). In fact, I even had a contest with my fellow CSS and Blargg Pit members. Anyways, while I didn’t do very well at all this year, I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Butler (a college which isn’t too far from the university I go to), for making into the championship game. I actually have a few friends of mine who also attend that university. Anyways, it has been very exciting to watch Butler play and I am very much looking forward to the championship game tomorrow. Good luck guys! Show them that Indiana means business. :P

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Yoshi’s Island:

When I last left my blog, I was actually still working on this project, but now that two weeks have passed, so has this project. It was a lot of fun working on the project, and ending the project as well. It was definitely one of my better projects, I have to say (in my opinion).

While there is the possibility of me doing the GBA exclusive levels, for now the project is done with, and it is satisfying to know that another +50 video project is completed. I would go into more detail about my feelings of the project, but I think I have done enough of that in the actual videos.

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Advance Wars:

Yesterday I started the Green Earth missions, which should take me about 3 weeks to completely finish. However, since I switched the uploading schedule from 2-3 missions a week to 4 missions a week, it is going to go a lot faster than it would normally go, which is a good thing. I’m still unsure when the project will technically end (that last mission is the determining factor), but I’m still going to say by the end of April.

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Super Bomberman 2:

Also, fairly recently, I started my LP of Super Bomberman 2. As stated numerous times, it won’t be a very long project, but with the way I’m updating things, it should stick around for a few weeks. I also may have underestimated how short the project would take, because after the first video, and recording a few others, I’m not where I expected to be, so it will probably be a little longer than expected. That shouldn’t be an issue though.

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CrystalStarStudio:

ThePastaKing is still taking us through Chapter 3, but from the look of things, this week could be the end (from what he has told me). I will get into my evaluations of him when I’m sure he will be finished. So far so, he has done great.

Also, I’d like to say that we have also started discussing possibilities for future projects. Some projects that will involve all the members, and some that will only involve a few members. We will start bringing our ideas together eventually and maybe we will introduce a new project come June (maybe….).

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Other News:

8000 Subscribers – Well, I wasn’t in the 7000s for very long, as I am quickly reaching the 8000 mark at a very swift pace. Heck, by the time some of you read this entry, I may have already made it there. I can’t believe how fast I have been gaining them as of late. By this rate, I’ll have 10,000 by my 3rd year anniversary (I didn’t even have 2,000 by my 2nd year). Thanks to all of you who have been subscribing to me, I really appreciate it.

Back-Up Progress – Still not quite finished with back-ups, but I should get back into the swing of things soon. Also the fact that summer break is quickly approaching is a good thing as well. Also, as usual, thanks to MegaFreak400 who has also been helping with this stuff.

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Blog Changes?

I’ve been thinking about this blog over the last few days, and I think I’m probably going to make some changes. First off, this has nothing to do with the scheduling, as I am pretty comfortable with updating once per week….that isn’t and has never really been an issue. I just have to remember to properly prepare for it in advance, and then have an idea of what to talk about, which is what the changes will mostly be about.

I’m thinking about going back into the way I used to have my blog entries, where I would first, quickly talk about the projects I am (would be) working on, and then having a misc. section where I would talk about things that aren’t related to my Youtube stuff, like stuff in the news, things about me (outside of Youtube), Top 5 lists, etc. I thought that worked pretty well, and the fact I was able to update that on a daily basis was quite impressive. Now it feels like I struggle with having something to talk about when I have all week to prepare. I don’t like being that unprofessional, but it’s hard when I don’t really prepare myself for this.

Anyways, I’m thinking that once summer rolls around, I think I am going to try and make these transitions, because I’m tired of half-assing these updates. I’ll put some thinking into this and hopefully I can get some ideas come May. Also, if you guys have any ideas, I would love to hear them as well.

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Anyways, that is about it for this entry. This has been SlimKirby….I will see you guys next week, and during the week for my video updates.

-SlimKirby

3/30/10 - No Update This Week

2010-03-30T06:32:00.001-07:00

Due to some issues, I wasn't able to get the blog entry for this past week up, nor will I really have time to make an entry now, so I am going to hold off and not update. I will have an update on Sunday, April 4th (this coming Sunday) though, so I will see you then.

3/21/10 - They Should Have Called It "Pokemon: Soul SlimKirby!"

2010-03-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here, back for another blog update!

I’m going to try and get through all I want to discuss in this update somewhat quickly, because I have some other stuff I have to do for my classes, and because I want to play some Pokemon Heart Gold before I go to bed.

First off, yes, I did indeed get Pokemon Heart Gold. I didn’t get it at release like I planned because I was an idiot and forgot what time Best Buy closes on Sundays, and by the time I got to one, I was too late. I did manage to get it on Monday though, and I have been periodically playing it since. I haven’t made very much progress, but I have made reasonable progress. Right now on my file, I’m actually about to challenge the 4th gym leader. I move through those games pretty slowly, and the fact that I have been getting a lot of assignments in my classes hasn’t exactly helped. The more I get through the game, I’ll probably post my thoughts on the game by itself, but for now, I’m actually enjoying it quite a bit.

Second, the month of March will be ending pretty soon, which means next week I will have the last entry for the month. I can’t believe how fast the weeks have been moving. I know I say that a lot, but I am truly that shocked by it. It seems like just yesterday I was writing daily entries for this blog when I did Hit and Run. Where the hell does the time go?

As for Youtube, things are finally starting to settle down a bit. The copyright strike fiasco is over, one of the two big projects I’ve been working on is coming to a close…….well, perhaps I should just go into that instead of talking about it here…

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Advance Wars:

Let’s see……I still wouldn’t say Im half-way done with the game, but I am making quite a bit of progress. Once I finish Yoshi’s Island, but before I start Super Bomberman 2, I may have a couple of days where I just make some progress in this project.

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Yoshi’s Island

Well, this game is slowing reaching the finish line. I probably won’t finish it by the next update, but since the next update will be the last update before I finish, I’ll give my final thoughts on the project then (or basically the abridged version of my final thoughts which I will probably talk about (or have already talked about)).

Great project though, that’s Yoshi’s Island.

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Super Bomberman 2

This game is upon us…..or upon me….whatever. Still unsure of the start date, but it will definitely begin during the first week of April. As I have mentioned before, the game shouldn’t be terribly long, so I will probably spread out the updates in a fashion where I’m updating Advance Wars more than usual, but not to the point where there are 5 updates per week. It should be pretty interesting as I’m looking forward to controlling the little bomb guy again. =D

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CrystalStarStudio

PK is just cruising along for once…. and doing a pretty good job of doing it. I have to admit that I am actually enjoying his updates. He should make updates more often!

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Well, I wish I could talk about more, but honestly, I just feel tapped out right now. Tapped out and I want to beat the crap out of Morty’s pokemon. See you guys next week for the next entry!

3/14/10 - And The Stress Keeps Marching In!

2010-03-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys, SlimKirby here!

Sorry for the lateness of this week's entry. This entry has been in mind all day, but execution unfortunately couldn't happen until the late hours of Sunday night, I guess. It's always crazy on the last day of Spring Break.

Anyways, unfortunately, due to the sickness I had, I didn't really get to enjoy my Spring Break very much. It's really hard to enjoy it when you need to sneeze and cough constantly. Thankfully, all of that died down a bit about half-way through the week, so I was able to update Youtube stuff again on Thursday. And, as I am writing this entry, I imagine a good night's sleep will vanquish what I have left in my system (I hope).

Anyways, not a lot to really mention this time, but I do have a few topics in mind and a few things I want to talk about, including last Friday's stream event, and the start of ThePastaKing's portion of the TTYD playthrough.

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Yoshi's Island:

The main game is almost finished. The final level (not counting bonus levels) should be up Saturday. I don't imagine the bonus levels and videos taking me that long either, so if I had to estimate an end date, probably the weekend of the 27th, but I can't say for sure just yet.

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Advance Wars:

Andy's path is almost done, which means I'll be making some storyline progress very soon. It's about time too, since I've had that cliffhanger from Mission #7M for awhile now. XD

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Super Bomberman 2:

I'd like to say that this project will start on April 1st, but I'm not really sure yet. The opportunity to prank you guys is just too good to pass up. =P

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Copyright Issue:

(Before Getting Message)
Still no information, unfortunately. I should get a response soon though. Hmmm, perhaps I'll check right now, since it has been a few days...

(After Getting Message)

YES! ITS FINALLY OVER! HUZZAH!

And yes, this happened while writing the blog. XD

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CrystalStarStudio:

Well, ThePastaKing is now up for his chapter. Now instead of worrying about risky updates....I have to worry about....updates even happening to begin with. XD

I'm just joking of course. I think ThePastaKing is a great LPer and he is more than qualified to LP any game. I just wish he would update a bit more. I know the life of a college student can be a busy one, but I see PK quite a bit in the Blargg Pit's chatroom. He doesn't seem as busy as he could be. :P

Either way though, for his first week of updating, things went pretty well. He made it through with all updates in tact, and he has the confidence to take it further. Trust me, this king is going places.

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March 12th, 2010 Stream Event:

Despite being sick for the first part of the week, the live stream event I wanted to host did actually come to fruition. My voice was still a bit hoarse, I lacked a cohesive group of moderators for a short period of time, and I had to sink to a low and play Pilotwings 64, but overall, it was a pretty good stream.

I started out with NSMBWii, which went averagely well. Nothing spectacular happened, but nothing terrible happened either. Pretty much what you expect with a Mario game.

Second game was Mega Man, which I only played for a short while. I didn't totally suck, as I was able to make it through 2/3 of the robot masters (and I don't normally play Mega Man), with very little struggle (although I really hate Elec Man's stage and block vanishing puzzles now).

Third game was Banjo Tooie, which was unfortunately where things started to drown out for a bit. Most of my co-commentators/moderators were either away or playing Modern Warfare 2, leaving the chat to be swarmed with spammers and impersonators, with nothing I could really do about it, as I was playing a game. I made quite a bit of progress though, considering (in Banjo Tooie standards (it is a hell of a long game).

Fourth game was Mario Golf, which I didn't play for very long. I only played one course and one mini-golf course. Wasn't incredibly exciting, but it was a nice transition to the last game.....well, it would have been if......the next game didn't happen.

The fifth game was a bit of a joke, but you guys insisted on voting for "Slim's Choice," which happened to be Pilotwings 64. I played only a few missions before moving on to the actual winner of the poll. I will say though, Pilotwings 64 is actually a pretty cool game. I just didn't do it justice as making it out to be a joke.

The final game of the stream was Diddy Kong Racing, and in my opinion, it was the highlight of the night. I'm not sure why, but I just had a lot of fun playing it. I only got about half-way through Adventure Two, but still, it will give me something to do for next stream....maybe.

Anyways, an above-average stream with some below-average moments. It was a pretty awkward day to host a stream, it being in the middle of the spring semester of school, but I wanted to give you guys something for making 7000 subscribers possible. Oh well, from the response I got, it was a pretty good stream regardless, and I will no doubt host another one down the line.

Also, as usual, there are videos of the stream on my UStream account, so if you were not able to make it, you can watch them to see some of the events that unfolded. I haven't edited the videos with appropriate titles and descriptions yet though, so keep that in mind.

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Anyways, that is about it for my Spring Break week entry. Time to hit the hay and get ready for an annoying week of classes =D =(

Later folks!

3/7/10 - Spring Break Blues

2010-03-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby *coughs* here!

Here I am on Spring Break, the much anticipated Spring Break, and what do I have to say for myself?

"Damn it!"

I seem to have a very good track record of getting sick every single Spring Break I have....and it's the same thing every time. Anyways, for those wondering what exactly I have, it's an upper-respiratory sinus infection. Basically, an infection that effects the different forms of respiration throughout the head area and the part of the respiratory system that leads to the lungs. Some general symptoms of this are runny or dry nose, eye irritation, coughing and wheezing (not the Pokemon), sore throat, and ear irritations (the latter two are my main problems). It's something I have had to put up with for the last 10 years of my life, multiple times per year. I am pretty used to dealing with this type of stuff, but it still gets on my nerves. I sometimes feel sorry for my mom for having her listen to my complaining (in person and on the phone), but she is pretty good about it though, since she goes through the same type of problems.

Anyways, due to these problems, they are going to put a bit of a damper on my Youtube uploadings for the first part of this week. Until I feel comfortable talking (and listening to myself talk), I refuse to put up anything I play (although I will admit, I am pretty well prepared for 5-8 of Yoshi's Island since I have played it like 15 times already XD). Anyways, I'm sure you guys have gotten the point by now.....I'm sick, so let's move past that and talk about other things.

I will say, this entry is going to be kind of short this week, but I really don't have much to discuss.

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Current Projects:

What can I say? I think both projects are going pretty well right now. Almost one world (and 6 bonus levels) left before I finish Yoshi's Island, and I'm making some moderate progress on Advance Wars as well. So yeah....no complaints from me. =)

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Back-up Progress and Copyright Situation:

Unfortuantely, no progress was made from me this week as far as my video backing up goes (nor have I gotten any new information from Youtube about the copyright stuff either). Thanks again to MegaFreak400 for starting and finishing Adventures of Lolo.

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CrystalStarStudio and KManRules1331:

Well guys, K-Man is finally finished with his chapter in the CSS playthrough of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. It was a pretty interesting roller coaster ride of thrills, but I didn't expect any less of K-Man.

I will say, when you go from a very informative and calm individual like MegaFreak400 to a humorous, off-the-wall, risk-taker like K-Man, you really get to see how unique this project will be when examining each individual host. When MegaFreak400 was in the driver's seat, I didn't have to worry because I knew he had good standards and we would be able to keep the attention with his informative rants and discussions. Now, while I'm not saying K-Man has bad standards....you have to admit.... that boy is a risk-taker. He will try to push the envelope as much as possible. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but expect to get some whacky results. On the whole, I thought K-Man did a great job and I wouldn't have changed anything about his performance (except for that audio desynch thing, but that wasn't his fault). Great job K-Man....you showed us that you can talk about "stage presence" and still be a great LPer.

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Anyways, kind of a short entry this week....I apologize. I'll do better next week when I'm hopefully feeling better.

- SlimKirby

2/28/10 - Let's Update a Blog!

2010-02-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, SlimKirby here, welcome to another weekend update for this silly little blog.

This has been the last week of February, and it just so happens to be the last day of February as well, which means March is upon us. First off, I'd like to give a quick shout-out to my dad who is celebrating his birthday tomorrow. Not going to mention how old he is because he would hurt me, and move my Netflix requests further down his account's queue, and nobody wants that. If you are curious, just remember that he has a 21-year old son, so that should give you some idea.

March also means that my Spring Break is coming up REALLY SOON! In fact, it will be upon me after this week, so I just have to make it through some assignments and some mid-terms, and then I can relax. Speaking of relaxing, I'm doing A LOT better this week than I was last week. This week was easily 100 times better. It was still tiring, but nothing terrible, and just thinking about the fact that I have a week of relaxation after this week....gives me a feeling of joy. It won't be complete relaxation as I will still update some videos for you guys, but that has never been a bother.

Anyways, quite a few things have been happening as of late. For one, I am SUPER STOKED because a release date for Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M have been announced by Nintendo, and Galaxy 2 should be upon us during the month of May (they said May 23rd). As you guys may (or may not) know, I was a huge fan of the first Galaxy, and I just can't wait for the sequel. MegaFreak400 posted a trailer at the Blargg Pit this past week if anyone is interested in checking that out. As for Metroid: Other M, I think it looks great too, but Galaxy 2 is easily higher up on my priority list. I will definitely check out Other M too though, just because of how unique it looks.

Also, Tiger Woods is still in the news.......my god, won't that thing just die already? The only reason I bring this up is that I'm a big fan of the PGA Tour, so Tiger Woods is a name I have been familiar with. In fact, since he is not my favorite golfer, I've already been sick of hearing is name just from all the tournaments he has won and how famous he is. However, this whole situation is just bull crap. I don't support what Tiger Woods did, and yes, he probably disappointed a lot of his fans, which is understandable, but honestly, the only reason we are still hearing about it is because the media WANTS us to hear about it, most likely because they have nothing better to report. This whole thing should be between him and his wife and his family....and not between him, his family, and everyone who owns a television, newspaper, or Internet. I remember, I was reading some news articles the other day, and I came across a page-lengthed article that was basically "Someone got a picture of Tiger Woods jogging last Wednesday!" And? Can't a man jog anymore? That's not news....that's harassment. If this was an ordinary person being followed by some creep who was stalking their every move, they could file a police report and get a restraining order. Tiger should just file a police report against the media. It would make those undeserving individuals lose their jobs and open up some windows to create jobs for more deserving and unfortunate individuals. Obviously though, that idea wouldn't work, so unfortunately we are stuck with with our "Hollywood Watch" structure of News and Media. It's because of this bull crap that I decided against going into Journalism.

Anyways, I think I'll start talking about Youtube now, because I have a few things to mention.

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Copyright Update and Back-Up Progress:

Well, I have some good news, and some...neutral news. I finally got a response from Youtube about the counter notice. Unfortunately it was a notice that said "Your notification has been sent to the claimant," so unfortunately we have more waiting. Either way though, if Scholastic doesn't respond to the claim in 10-15 business days, the whole thing gets dropped, so that is definitely some positive reassurance.

Once again, thanks to the always helpful MegaFreak400 for even more back-up progress. He took the liberty of not only finishing all that was left for Link's Awakening, but he also backed-up all of Kirby Super Star last Friday as well. I really appreciate you help man. Besides that though, I did successfully back-up Mario Party 2 as well, although it took more time than I would have liked it to. We are surely getting there....

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Current Projects (Advance Wars and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island)

As I've mentioned in various places, I am now on a slightly new schedule for the updating of these projects. Hopefully the new schedule will speed up Advance Wars in the long run, since I definitely don't want to be doing that project forever, and also, hopefully, it doesn't really slow down Yoshi's Island either. There isn't much to discuss otherwise though, so I'll leave it at that and talk about the main thing I wanted to mention for this update.

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Super Bomberman 2 and Mario Party 6:

These games have been on my "Future Projects" list for awhile now, so it's about time that I actually gave some insight to when they would actually begin. Well, this past week I did some calculations about when I would finish both Yoshi's Island and Advance Wars, and I determined that the former will be finished at the end of March, and the latter at the end of April. Of course this depends on a few factors (possibility of multiple uploads on a Yoshi's Island day is the main one). These project beginnings are a bit later than I originally intended them to be, but I kind of underestimated the length of Avance Wars, so that's more my fault than anything.

Anyways, Super Bomberman 2 will start after the completion of Yoshi's Island. It may not be "right away," but within a week of the ending. Consider this game to be the replacement for Yoshi's Island on the schedule after YI finishes (unless I decide on a new schedule somewhere down the road). The game itself won't be terribly long, but it may last til the end of Advance Wars (that is what I am hoping anyways).

Mario Party 6 is not set in stone just yet, and Advance Wars is kind of the determining factor for that. As I said in one of the above paragraphs, it really just depends on if I decide to alter the schedule again to make it go a bit faster. Anyways, since I should be starting Mario Party 6 around the start of my summer vacation, I may be able to do 2 boards per week (faster than Mario Party 5) which should make that a pretty quick project (since there are only 6 party boards). I'll talk more about this project the closer we get to it, but it should be here in 2 months, at the very least.

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CrystalStarStudio:

Last week I mentioned giving my thoughts on Chapter 2, and the chapter host K-Man. However, I will save that for next weekend, when he will actually be done. Either way, he will finish up this week, and Chapter 3 "may" start this week as well, hosted by ThePastaKing.

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Anyways, that is about it for this update. See you guys next week, and have a good first week of March! =)

2/21/10 - What a Week....

2010-02-21T16:51:00.001-08:00

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

Welcome to another update of this FANTASTIC (overexaggeration of course) blog. I do apologize for the somewhat lateness of this entry, but I have to admit that this did slip my mind until a bit ago. I truly wonder, though, that if the reason I didn't remember until now was because I actually forgot or if I had nothing of major note to mention in this entry that it just slipped out of my head. Either way, I did make a commitment to updating every week, and that is what I am here to deliver on.

Last week I mentioned that I was starting to get a bit burned out with all the stuff I do, and let's just say that this week did not help relieve any bit of that. By the end of this week, I was a wreck...so much that nearly my entire Saturday was ruined, and that IS NOT a day I ever want to ruin. Thankfully, I think this weekend will be a bit different, but I can only hope.

For anyone wondering if Youtube is the cause of this stress, don't be ridiculous. I spend 30 minutes to an hour every 3 days on Youtube stuff and my schedule has plenty of free time for that work. As for uploading/updating, that's nothing of concern either as I upload the videos during my shower or whilst I eat breakfast, and they never take more than 10 minutes to upload. As I think I have said before, I use Youtube and LPs as a way of decreasing the stress, because I get to play games =D! If I was ever put into a situation where I had to put off or cancel an upload, I would not hesitate. I would feel bad, but my real life comes first.

Anyways, some of you are probably wondering what exactly I have to say or impart to you for this update, so let's get on with it!

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Video Backing-Up and Copyright Stuff

Apparently I forgot to mention any word whatsoever about the whole copyright thing last week. It's not really that I forgot anything, it's just that nothing has happened. I even checked before making this update and Youtube still has not given me any information, and it has officially been 2 weeks now. If I don't get anything by next weekend, I'm more than likely going to find a way to contact Youtube about the problem directly, because this counter notification form doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I mean, I wish I could at least have an update of some sort, like if it got sent in and the claimant is verifying, or if it is in a big pile of notifications, or...really anything. I really don't like waiting when I have so much at risk.

For the time being, I'm just going to continue to backing-up my videos and hoping I'll get a response very soon. I finished backing up The Simpsons: Hit and Run the other day, and Im hoping to get Mario Party 5 done tonight as well, so work is definitely being done, and the more projects I get backed up, the less I'll have to do in case disaster strikes!

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Advance Wars:

Still some slow-goings with this game, but hopefully things will start picking up with the new upload schedule that will start being implemented next Friday, where I will be uploading more videos of this per week, and slightly less videos of Yoshi's Island.

Currently, I have just reached the first branching path of the game, and I have destroyed many, many enemy units! =D

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Yoshi's Island:

We're more than halfway there! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH! LIVIN ON A PRAYER!

Ok, sorry about that, but Yoshi's Island is indeed halfway done at this point, and with the new update schedule, I recon there will be at least 3 1/2 more weeks of the project, so it will be done by about mid or late March (about when I predicted).

I hate to admit it though, but I've kind of been getting a bit annoyed with this game. It's nothing really the game has done to me, it's actually more of the response I have been getting. It feels like no matter what I do, I can't make certain people happy, even when I meet them more than halfway and way more than they even deserve. I'm tired of justifying my "relaxed" nature in my videos without people assuming, "YOU'RE TOO TIRED!" And even when the audio and video is desynched just a tiny bit (a problem I can't fix or control), the video is somehow unwatchable? I just don't get it. Oh, and here is one thing that really blew my mind. In 4-3, when I was having trouble getting a red-coin fly guy to appear on-screen, some commenters took the liberty of saying I was wrong and making assumptions over where the last red coin actually was, when I clearly show at the end of the video that the fly guy DID have the red coin I needed. I mean, I know some people like to comment while they are watching the video, and sometimes they make the mistake of posting corrections before seeing that the correction was unnecessary, but in this situation it made no logical sense. This is a 100% playthrough, one that I have done before many times, with no prior instances of asking for help, and no instance of me saying in the video description or annotation that I didn't find everything....why would you assume half-way through the video that I was wrong, especially when they ended up being the ones not to know anything? Ugh...sometimes people just make me want to hit my head against the wall.

I know I should take what Youtubers say (when they are like this anyways) with a grain of salt, but with the rapid rate at which my subscriber number is increasing....that's a lot of salt grains.

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CrystalStarStudio:

We still got K-Man, and from the looks of it, we will have him for another two weeks. Not that there is anything wrong with that, as he has been doing an ok job, but there have been some highs, some lows, and of course, some hilarity (it is K-Man after all). I'll give a full evaluation of the K-Man once he gets closer to finishing his chapter (since some of you are probably wondering my opinion of what happened in last Friday's video, let's just say I'll discuss that in the evaluation).

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Well, I have nothing else to really report, so I will leave it at that. I will try to keep my eyes peeled for stuff to talk and rant about for next entry, because I actually kind of enjoyed ranting about stupid Youtube comments. =)

See you guys next time!

2/14/10 - Halftime for February!

2010-02-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

Geez, already I can't believe another month is half over. These two weeks went by really, really fast. They went by so fast, I don't even know if it's a good thing. At least I can say that I am one week closer to another summer vacation (which I'm sure I'll still waste).

Anyways, even though this past week was fast, I did have some obstacles to break through. I struggled through some exams, I rattled my brain to solve some big Java programs I had to write, and fought the outside winter wonderland. One of the exams I had I did ok on, but the 2nd one I bombed...big time. Thankfully though, I have an exam I can drop in that class, so that will no doubt be the one I drop. And let me tell you guys, I'm already tired of the Winter weather, because it is getting mucho ridiculoso. I finally got to come home this weekend, which was nice, but I have a feeling that I won't be seeing the end anytime soon.

As for the Blargg Pit, since I haven't talked about it for awhile (and I feel like giving it some extra blog time to help boost some visits), things have been pretty uneventful. Right now, we are at the point where we are still trying to get used to all of the new responsibilities and the way we update things, and it's taking toll on some of us. Once we get more used to everything, we'll start considering some other feature implementation. We still got quite a bit going on though, so don't be afraid to check it out. ShadowMarioXLI is still hosting his trivia events, which occur every few weekends. PowerToMario and Gaming Nights, although going a bit slow these days, had a pretty successful event last night when we decided to give iSketch a try. It was filled with good times, and a lot of "pitifalls." Also, why the hell are there Metroid and Pokemon locations in a Mario list (Smash Bros. isn't a good reason). And of course, CrystalStarStudio's playthrough of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is still going strong. Truly, there is a lot you can check out at The Blargg Pit....SO HERE IS A LINK! GO THERE AND BE EATEN BY BLARGGS! I mean....AND BE GREETED WITH OPEN ARMS!

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Yoshi's Island

Last time I mentioned that the project would be jeopardy, but I can't say the same anymore. Yoshi's Island will continue as normally, and I do apologize for scaring you last week. And tomorrow, i will officially reach the half-way point of the main game, so hooray for continued progress!

For those of you wondering about the issue, well, as explained in 3-6, it was merely me getting tired of the video lag that was experienced through most of the 1st part of the game. I still have no clue why that even happened in the first place (since it was the same way I recorded both Super Bomberman and Donkey Kong '94), but I assume it's attributed to how graphically impressive Yoshi's Island is in the first place. Plus the fast-paced gameplay doesn't exactly make matters easier. Anyways, I just did some research and found a way I could record straight from the emulator (which is what I would have done at first, but the version I had didn't work properly).

Either way, the project got saved thanks to my research, so I'm glad I can continue this great game!

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Advance Wars:

I'm going to go ahead and say this right now, just to get it out of the way...

This project is moving too slow for my own liking.

I mean, I just started campaign mode, and things really aren't going that badly or anything (the people who watch it seem to enjoy it, anyways), but I just keep thinking about the fact that if you look at the upload schedule in a specific way, I'm only updating 1-2 missions per week, and that is not a lot, considering how big this project will end up being. So I think I have decided that a change to the upload schedule is in order. This process will only decrease the weekly input of Yoshi's Island by at least one video, and that is still half of a world in one week. It's basically, instead of 3 days of Yoshi's Island and 1 day of Advance Wars, 2 days of Yoshi's Island and 1 day of Advance Wars, which seems to make more sense in the long run. Then, if I need to prolong/postpone an Advance Wars mission, I can do that. It's really not a bad system, if you ask me.

So I think I will implement this schedule after I finish World 4 of Yoshi's Island, which should happen at the beginning of next week. I'm doing this just because I don't want to be doing Advance Wars forever...I have a lot of other big games planned. =D

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Back-Up Channel:

Major work has been done to my back-up channel, SlimKirby64, which I guess I should put the link for, since I think I forgot to even mention this last week...
SlimKirby64

Although, when looking at the page, it looks like nothing is there. However, quite a bit of work has definitely been done. For one, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is completely backed up now, so if I lose my channel, I won't have to redo that monster of an LP. Also, work on both Simpsons: Hit and Run and Zelda: Link's Awakening (my two personal favorite projects) has started, and should be finished within this next week (or at least Hit and Run). I've also started uploading all of my current projects (Yoshi's Island and Advance Wars) and will continue to back those up regularly.

I would like to give a big thank you to MegaFreak400 for helping me with this process. Although he hasn't backed-up very much, every little bit helps and I owe him a lot for even taking time out of his schedule to help me a little (he even got put in his college's penalty box for going over the bandwidth limit (basically, a small suspension from Internet use in his room)). I'd also like to give a small future thank you to other CSS members who have also volunteered and considered helping. And then of course, thanks to everyone else and all of my subscribers for supporting me throughout this entire ordeal. It feels good to know I have fans who want to lend a hand and help in some way, even if it is just by leaving comments on my normal, everyday videos. The feeling is spectacular! =)

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Anyways, that is about it. Now, I have a lasagna to get to (my mom cooked =D =D), so I'm going to submit this entry and then go munch on that. See you guys next week for another entry!

2/7/10 - More Like CopyWRONG Infringement

2010-02-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! Hope you guys had a nice week, and welcome to the first update of the….almost new update schedule. I say almost because you are really only getting the update one day earlier (although I am a bit overdue due to not updating last week, but still).

Anyways, I had a pretty busy and never-ending week, if you couldn’t tell, and Youtube wasn’t even half of it. I had a huge amount of homework, and preparation for a number of exams I have this next week. It’s tiring, and it won’t be easy, but I always come through, somehow.

Also, Indiana got hit pretty hard this weekend in terms of snow, and after two days of sunlight, barely even a fourth of it has melted. I talked about this in my Yoshi’s Island video today, but the snow pretty much cancelled any plans I had this weekend. I was going to go home, but unfortunately, those plans did not come to fruition. Hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen this weekend…

Tonight is also a big night for sports and Indiana with the Super Bowl. Am I rooting for the Colts? Well, to be honest, I’m not a big fan of sports, particularly football, but as long as ShadowMario41 wants the Saints to win, I gotta root for the hometeam. I’m posting this entry while the game is going on, and at this time the Colts are up by 7, but I’m sure anything can happen.

Anyways, time to get to Youtube stuff, because I have quite a bit to talk about there.

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Copyright Claim (GRRR!):

Ok, so this was perhaps the highlight of my week…and definitely not in a good way. I’m still pissed off about the entire incident in the first place, and I’m even angrier that it seems like Youtube isn’t doing anything about it. I mean, I can’t really expect them to be miracle workers, but every day that goes by, the closer I get to something else happening, and I can’t afford another strike.

For those wondering what exactly happened here, well, in short, I got a bullshit audiovisual copyright claim on a video that didn’t have any copyrighted content (besides the video title). Ironically this claim was made on the video that I actually launched this blog on (I noticed that after looking over my entries the other day). Anyways, the copyright was by Scholastic for the title of my video “The Magic School Bus of Destruction,” which is a very pathetic thing to make a claim on. Anyways, this happened to be my 2nd strike on Youtube, which means if I get another strike, my account is pretty much terminated, so you can tell that this has been quite a big concern.

As for my options, I have already sent in two counter claims (basically, a form you submit to Youtube telling them that the claim was made in false pretenses). The first claim I sent wasn’t accepted because I didn’t use my G-Mail address (another bullshit thing that happened), and I’m eagerly awaiting the 2nd claim to go through. I’m not sure how long this will take, since I have gotten various estimations. Sonikdude101 (who I am very surprised even commented on one of my videos (since he is considered a more popular LPer)) said it would only take a day to go through, while people at the Community Help Forums said it would take a few weeks. It took 3 or 4 days to get the e-mail rejection in the first place, and who knows how long it will actually take with the right e-mail address.

Anyways, I just want to say to you guys that I really appreciate the support I have gotten from you guys over this entire incident. You guys have been phenomenal and it is nice to know I have such a good following here at Youtube. After this incident, and the whole thing with NintendoCapriSun, you have shown me that Youtubers aren’t just 1st Commenters and Sub4Subbers….they can also be very loyal and supportive. Just take it a little easy on all the Scholastic bashing in my channel comments, ok? I don’t like what they did either, but I am trying to resolve this issue now and things are being taken care of to make sure that even if it gets worse, there will always be a safety net.

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Advance Wars

Since I didn’t get to update Monday, I actually never got to formally introduce this game into my growing list of Let’s Plays.

First of all, for those wondering, I did mean to put that picture of Olaf into the scheduling video I posted last Sunday. It just so happened that a lot of you guys were able to easily identify it. I tried to shorten that picture as much as I could before I actually put it in there, but WMM has a limit to how short you can cut a video clip of a stilled image. Personally, I really didn’t care about you guys figuring out what my project was going to be, I just found it weird how nobody correctly guessed the game until that moment. Heck, even when I showed the picture, people still thought the game was going to be Kingdom Hearts (for whatever reason). Anyways, I figured that I would go ahead and give-away what the game was going to be 6 hours before I actually posted the video, as I didn’t really see any point to keeping it a secret for that much longer.

Anyways, the first week of the project consisted of the Field Training mode of the game, and boy was that fun (sarcasm of course). I do feel bad for having to go through that mode, for those of you who wanted me to jump straight into the game, but trust me, I did you guys a favor by waiting. I really didn’t want to spend entire videos of campaign mode explaining all of the mechanics of the game. Hopefully now we can get the game started!

It will be a long road ahead of us, but the Campaign Mode starts Tuesday, so I will see you then for that.

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Yoshi’s Island

I have some bad news about Yoshi’s Island, but I’m not going to get into that now. I’ll mention it next entry when it is more relevant (you may be able to guess from the videos this week). As for the project up to this point, I think it’s going pretty well. World 1 was kind of slow at first, but I think I picked up the pace for World 2. I also think I nailed the first World 3 videos well too. Many people seemed to really enjoy the “Two Stars” montage today.

For those of you wandering about the “bad news,” don’t let it worry you just yet. Just enjoy what I have and what will be posted this week for what it is and I’ll take care of everything else. Just expect a non-LP video related to the project at the end of this week…

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CrystalStarStudio

On Friday, we bid farewell to the always iformative MegaFreak400 and we say hello the absolute chaos that is KManRules1331 for Chapter 2.

Although only one video has been posted from our new host, I can safely say that it was the most hilarious video posted thus far, and if he continues his antics for the following videos, we will all be rolling on the floor….laughing our asses off.

But anyways, as I stated in the channel comments for that account, great job Mega at a solid job at the first chapter. You did great! =)

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Well, that is about it for no. I know I left you with some questions for this entry…
What will happen with the copyright situation?
Will Advance Wars be entertaining?
What is the bad news for Yoshi’s Island?
Is K-Man really that funny?

But I assure you….some of those questions will be answered this week. If not, then you wasted a lot of time watching my videos =D. Only kidding…have a good week guys!

-SlimKirby

1/31/10 - Some Changes...and No Update Tomorrow

2010-01-31T12:52:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, SlimKirby here!

I am going to make this brief, but basically, I have decided to make some changes to how I will update this blog. I will no longer be making updates on Monday, and instead, I will be making updates every Sunday. My Mondays happen to be really busy for me and I feel kind of rushed to make the entry. Plus, I don't think it is fair to worry about it when I also have to worry about classes on the same day. In the long run, I think Sunday updates will be better in the long run, as I have all day to make the update, and if I really wanted to, I could also work on it a bit on Saturday too. Hope this change isn't inconvenient to anybody (although I guess it really doesn't matter).

Also, due to this change and the fact I have to launch a new project tomorrow, I have decided that I am not going to update it this week. But I will be back on Sunday for another update, so don't worry.

1/25/10 - Make Blog, Update Blog

2010-01-25T07:32:00.000-08:00

(The title of this entry is a pun on the name of the first level of Yoshi's Island :P)

Hello people, and welcome to this week's first (and only, technically) blog entry. Hard to believe that the first month of 2010 is already coming to an end, but now that winter break is over, and more school is upon us, I'm sure the next 11 months will go slower. =(

Anyways, not much to report on from the world of SlimKirby. School has pretty much been eating up all of my time and work, I haven't been able to play very many games, and any free time I get, I'm usually taking a nap during it. I never knew how stressful college life can be...especially when like 70% of college students are partying all day and night and staying up late and waking up in the afternoon. I can't do that stuff, and can't really afford to do it either. I suppose it just varies from person to person.

Anyways, I don't have very many details to discuss here, so I guess I'll move on to....

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Youtube:

As for Youtube stuff, would you believe me if I said I have footage for the next 11 days recorded already? I don't think I've been this prepared for....well, anything.

Yoshi's Island -

It all pretty much started when I decided that I would record the first half of World 2, to just get it done and out of the way. After doing that, I decided that ZSNES wasn't doing it for me, so I decided to switch to SNES9x in hopes that it would fix the small video skips and lags that have been occurring in the first 10-12 videos of the project. Although there is no big difference, I think it is noticeably better, so I am glad I switched (I start using the new emulator for 2-5 and on....). Then I just recorded the rest of World 2, because I wanted to test the new emulator more extensively, and from there, I finished World 2. So far, the project has been going pretty well. I haven't been completely satisfied with commentary (as I would like to be), but I guess I can't really complain too much. I've done so many videos and projects and I'm a strong believer in consistent and constant improvement, so eventually I would have to reach a limit to how much I can improve something. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback, so i'll take that as a good sign.

New Project (Starts: February 1st, 2010) -

I can't believe the start of this project is now only a week away. I originally got the idea to do this project several months back, but I wasn't confident enough to start it until now. Now I can safely say that the delays are over, and this will start very, very soon.

But, just what is this project? Well, from what I have told you so far, I mentioned that the game is and will be a lot like Fire Emblem, however, I will admit that I may have exaggerated a few things about the game's length. The project may not have as many videos as Path of Radiance did, and it may not last til the end of Spring as I figured it might, but it will still be generally pretty long, given the way I'm updating the project. Each update will generally be 1-2 videos (3 at the very most), and I will be updating the project every 4th day in a 4-day rotation (the first 3 days being Yoshi's Island). I know I made it seem like every update would be about 3-5 videos, but I should have actually paid better attention to how long each part actually was before opening my mouth-hole. Sorry for the confusion and the false information.

Now, before I start dropping some more hints, I'm also going to state that the first week of this project is going to be a little different (so in other words, the 4-day rotation doesn't start until February 6th). The first 5 days of this project will just feature the new project, and I'll be taking a 5-day break from Yoshi's Island to get started with this new one. The first 5 days will deal with some pre-game content (basically content that is part of the game, but not part of the game's main story/adventure/etc). Think of this as a prologue, if you will (they don't call it a prologue though, so don't make assumptions here). This "prologue" will take me more than 10 videos though, I hate to say, so expect a lot of videos to be uploaded next week (Monday - 2, Tuesday - 2, Wednesday - 3, Thursday - 2 or 3, Friday - 2 or 3, just as an estimation). It really depends on how long the final recording session ends up being (in terms of time). Basically, I will be in an uploading frenzy next week, so if you like when I upload a lot of videos, you will really like next week (that is, if you like the project anyways).

So what exactly is my next project? I've been hiding it for months, nobody has correctly guessed what it is.....should I just come out with it and end all of this waiting around? Nah, I'll let you suffer some more. I've never gone this long without someone guessing what it is, and it feels good that I can actually keep a secret from you guys, but for those of you who must pry the hints out of me, just keep in mind all of the previous hints I have given. The game is very similar to Fire Emblem, but is not Fire Emblem. Just think about what kind of game Fire Emblem is and go from there, and knowing the developer isn't a bad idea. Also keep in mind my restrictions in the games I do (specifically systems from where the games I do come from). I'm sure someone will figure it out...

Crystal Star Studio -
Not much to say about this, as MegaFreak400 is still doing an excellent job with navigating us through Chapter 1. We predict he will be finished by the middle of next week, and then we will hand it over to KManRules1331 (GOD HELP US ALL!).

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I think that is about all I want to discuss this time, so I guess I'll submit what I have here and see you next week. I'll try to have something else to discuss next time, as I know there are a few individuals who enjoy my entries where I talk about more than just Youtube and LP stuff....

later folks!

-SlimKirby

1/18/10 - I Don't Have a Dream, but I Do Have Ice Cream!

2010-01-18T12:52:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody and Happy MLK Jr. Day! Welcome to this week's blog entry. I was fortunate enough to not have class today, although since I did go home, I do have a long drive ahead of me, so that should be interesting (to say the least). I spent my day pretty much finishing some homework assignments I had over the weekend and I had a wonderful lasagna meal provided by my awesome mother. You would think no-meat lasagna would be bland and boring.....but not when my mom cooks it. =)

Anyways, once again I don't have much to report today for this week, which makes me a little sad because I gave such an extensive Christmas entry two weeks ago. Speaking of that entry, I finally got Dynasty Warriors 6 in the mail this past week. We aren't sure what took the game so long to arrive, but apparently our original order was faulty and got canceled, and then our second order came almost immediately. Sometimes you gotta love Amazon.com, and other times you just have to despise it.

I'm still in the middle of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and that Pokemon Platinum file. I'm not quite sure what caused me to drop those two playthroughs all of the sudden, although getting back into Dynasty Warriors was definitely a factor, and I've also been trying to fully complete Helper to Hero mode in Kirby Super Star Ultra (two more helpers left, Burnin Leo and Birdon (the latter of which I'm convinced is nearly impossible)). Speaking of Kirby, I picked up Air Ride again this weekend and finally managed to complete the Air Ride and Top Ride checklists. I'm not really proud about Top Ride since it is considerably easier than both Air Ride and City Trial, and a lot of the challenges are more time consuming than actually difficult. I am really proud of the Air Ride checklist though, because that took some considerable amount of work to actually finish, since the majority of them are basic time trials and tests. I'm good with Mario Kart time trials, but definitely not Air Ride ones. I'm not done with the City Trial checklist just yet, but only because the challenges I have left are cumulative and time-consuming tests ("Drive over 200 miles" and "Play Free Run for 2 hours"). There is also another very annoying checklist item to get which revolves around getting lucky in the actual city and getting a good combination of the right star and the item modifiers.

As for real life, and the non-video game variant, not much has really been going on; just trying to get adjusted to my new semester schedule and trying to take it easy so I don't go insane with my work load. My mom also got me The Simpsons: Season 20 on DVD, which was a really nice gift on her part. Although, I'm still a bit confused on why exactly they released the 20th season when they still have seasons 13-19 to release on DVD. Oh well, I've always found Matt Groening and the other Simpson producers to be, in a simple word, nutcases. They are almighty nutcases though for creating one of the longest running and literally the best and most influential animated television show in history. That's why I paid tribute to them in my LP of Hit and Run! =D

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Streaming:

I meant to talk about this last week, but I kind of neglected it. I wanted to quickly make some comments about the two streams I had during Winter Break and then the possibility of having streams more often during the next few months.

First of all, I have to say that the stream on the 30th of December went pretty well, considering I only played 3 games, and there were a few technical issues as well. New SMB Wii was kind of an average way to start, and the second part of it was kind of stale due to various amounts of failure in World 2, but neglecting the star coin challenge kind of got things back on track. The next part of the stream was Banjo Tooie, which disappointed a lot of people, despite that being the highlight of the night (in my eyes). I don't blame them though due to the fact that a majority of my subscribers are probably subscribed to NintendoCapriSun, and seeing Banjo Tooie on top of Banjo Tooie and with even more Banjo Tooie can get boring. Anyways, I did have fun playing the game despite that, and I would also like to give my thanks to largo233 for also playing a part in the stream as a special guest commentator. The final game was Mario Party 2.....and why was that game chosen in the poll? Haven't you seen enough Mario Party from me? Bah, you Youtubers and you wanting to see me in pain. Anyways, despite the highs and lows, the stream turned out really well with quite a huge turnout.

The second stream on January 8th was a bit different. Not only did I start that stream earlier, I also ended later as well, so I was able to play a lot of games. Once again I started out with New SMB Wii, which, kind of went in the same direction as it did in the first stream. Second, for some reason, I played Pokemon Stadium. I started with an attempt on Gym Leader Castle which went horribly after fighting a certain Pokemon of Brocks. So for the rest of the hour, I just played the Kid's Club mini-games, where we got to hear Clefairy's sing, and see our Metapods harden...no bad jokes please. Then for some other, bad reason, I played Crash Bash. Why did I play Crash Bash? Did I really need to play Crash Bash? Well, it was basically me playing mini-games....very repetitive mini-games, so take that however you want. Next game on the list was more Banjo Tooie, which I thought once again was the highlight of the night. However, a freak happening with my Internet caused me to go offline for 15 minutes, which was kind of a bummer, but I'm just thankful the problem got fixed. The next three games I played only lasted an hour, another hour, and 30 minutes respectively for Kirby 64, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and Goldeneye 007. I didn't even come close to finishing the first two (nor do I have plans to finish them on stream), and during Goldeneye I just messed around and failed missions on purpose. Kind of an uneventful 2 1/2 hours, but still...Kirby was kind of fun.

All in all, I won't say the streams were very "successful," but they were still nice, despite the technical glitches and the annoying skype callers (which shouldn't be a problem anymore since I changed my Skype name for good and won't be giving it to people publicly). If you weren't at the streams and if you would like to see the videos from the stream, or if you want to watch them again for whatever reason, follow the link below. I haven't edited the video names for the January 8th stream just yet, but they should still be there and they should bewatchable (I may do it after posting this entry if I remember).
http://www.ustream.tv/SlimKirby/videos

Because of these streams, I have decided that I will definitely do more streams in the future, but they won't be very often. Definitely expect a stream during the 2nd week of March when I have my Spring Break, and possibly whenever I come home and have access to my wide variety of systems.

Hope you guys enjoyed!

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Yoshi's Island and Crystal Star Studio

So today I started Yoshi's Island! I only wish I had something to say about it, but honestly, since it just started, I really don't have much to say about it. I've already recorded most of the first world and so far it hasn't given me really any problems at all (not that I really expected it to or anything). As I finish up the first world this week, maybe I'll have something to talk about next week? We'll see what happens, I guess...

As for CrystalStarStudio, the prologue is finished, and MegaFreak400 has started up with his first video today for Chapter 1. MegaFreak400 is a very informative guy and that really shows in his videos. For those of you who don't really like the informative type and like moreso the casual talker type, I still say don't let that turn you off. There is always something about Mega's videos that just get me thinking, in particular when he goes on his many rants about video game music and other relevant (and even irrelevant) topics, so definitely check the guy out. It will still be awhile before my chapter comes up, but I'll be ready when it is =).

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Anyways, that's all I really wanted to talk about today. Next week I may start dropping hints about my new LP project, so be sure to drop by to check it out. If all things go according to the current schedule, it may be here February 1st, which is only 2 weeks from now.

See you later folks!