Ultimate Spiderman! My thoughts

It looks like the Ultimate good guy just got a little more Ultimate!
My friend introduced me to Disney XD's new cartoon series for everyone's favourite webhead, and it's now one of the most entertaining shows I've seen this summer. It's a fun, zany show, chock full of fan service for even some of the biggest followers of the Marvel universe. While at times the show's humour may seem over the top and incredibly cheesy at times, at it's core it's an enoyable romp with Spiderman and younger versions of  4 heroes that have become all but forgotten in the storm of Hulks, Wolverines, and Iron Men.

Perhaps the drawn out humour also works for the shows benefit, with Spiderman often breaking the fourth wall as the narrator each episode, and cutting to some strange fantasy that he cooks up on the spot. It may seem jarring and unnecessary at first, but each cut provides humour through it's varied nature as well as it's shock factor (Nick Fury on the Price is Right? Awesome!). Sometimes if you're going to have a sense of humour, you may as well go all out.

This is also a great way for me to pass the time in between seasons of other shows too!

Hear VILE say "like" and "um" 500 times!

Now that my next batch of Project Dark videos are ready for uploading tomorrow morning, I can't help but still be caught in the habit of saying "like" and "um" after nearly every other sentence. In my walkthrough, the commentary I make is actually recorded live as I watch the playback. I believe that the main reason I tend to stutter and drone on and on is because of flaws in my current system. That's why, starting in my next batch, I've decided to change my method of commentating.

When I first started doing recordings, my form of commentary was done live as I was playing the actual game. However, the process was a bit difficult, as I was (and evidently still am) terrible at multitasking. But since Project Dark takes more concentration than your average game, I've opted for "post recording" commentary. And yet my dialogue still comes out as forced and disorganized, and is therefore not an enhancement to my videos.

And so here I am, searching for a new solution. 9 parts into the walkthrough, I've decided to try writing out my commentary after recording, and then reading off of it during my post record commentating. It sounds a bit lame right now, but this can definitely help bypass my occasional disorganized wording and will also give my brain a little more room to help me enunciate my words so that the commentary will be more enthusiastic. I believe that this will be a strong stepping stone on my way to improving the quality of my projects, and becoming a much more genuine sounding speaker.

Quick update as of FRIDAY THE 13TH

Picked up the Metal Gear Solid HD collection as well as MGS4 for my Ps3 the other day. I finished the remainder of Guns of the Patriots' campaign from when I borrowed it from my friend last year in one sitting, although I'll admit I skipped a large chunk of all the cutscenes (I know, shameful).
I'm looking forward to getting started on the HD collection, although I'm already knee deep in video games as it is now that I'm working on "Project Dark" as well as still being addicted to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Not to mention that I still have the overpowering desire to challenge the fighting game community inside of my town as well, so as you can see, I'm swamped and I'm loving every minute of it.

My sister recently bought Epic Mickey for the Wii. I was interested in the game when it was announced back in 2010, but my attention was turned to other things by the time the final product was released. Now that I'm seeing the game in action, I'm looking forward to getting a chance at playing it.
One of the biggest critiques for the title was that the camera would be insufferable at times. However, instead of apologizing the developers defended the quirky camera by claiming "the players weren't playing it right". In my view, this is a lame excuse. I'm reminded of every other platformer game I've ever played, and there was no such thing as "playing it wrong". In Super Mario Sunshine, there was no wrong way to reach a shine, there were only variations of ways. When you're a little kid like I was when I played that game, I played however I wanted and had fun when I did. Developers need to remember to keep their games accessible, especially if said game was geared towards a younger audience.

I've already uploaded the first 6 parts of "Project Dark", although they're not without their own fair share of issues. You see, the game is very dark and I didn't make any adjustments to the ingame brightness setting because I was fine with the way it was. The footage still looked perfectly clear on my computer, it's just that when I uploaded them to Youtube, things became super dark. I've already used Youtube's option to brighten the video, but it only does so much. The best I can do is advise the viewers to view the first 6 videos in full screen mode, that way the game environments will look much clearer.
The continuation of "Project Dark" will be happening next week, hopefully.

The Road to Ruin: My experiences as a Videographer pt1

I love making movies. Whether it's making the cheesiest horror film possible for a school project, or just combining a soundtrack to a gameplay video that I recorded, I'm always eager for a new opportunity to see what I can do with whatever I've been assigned.

My earliest experiences started off when I was about 13 years old, playing Adventure Quest (awesome game, by the way). Spending some time in the games forums, I decided to look up some powerful techniques that could be used on Youtube. As soon as I hit the search button, I happened upon a gold mine of information that would help me step up my game. Suddenly this single player, browser based RPG had all the community of any decent MMO. These videos and these other players gave me better ideas of the uses of powerful armour and weapons, cool skill builds, and solid strategies for some of the strongest bosses at the time. I decided that I would become like these people, and so I started making some videos of me using whatever strategies and builds that I came up with.

Of course, my family's desktop wasn't exactly a powerhouse. Eventually the simple act of using an unregistered Hypercam became too much for my old computer, and eventually I decided to stop recording altogether since I was running out of ideas as well as interest. Then I got into high school and joined the media arts class. The course challenged me to use different styles of film that I've never known before, and as a result I've become more familiar with the styles while becoming more versatile myself. All throughout high school I spent my lunches in the library expanding my imagination and in the computer room editing whatever footage I had filmed while jotting down whatever shots or scenes I still had to take.

In my final year of high school, I discovered a method of recording console gameplay. Being the avid gamer and videographer that I was, I couldn't resist...

ASTR: A Summer To Remember

Summer is often overhyped. Last year, a lot of my friends were disappointed because it didn't live up to their expectations. All I can really say to that is "Of course nothing happened. You didn't do anything!" And even if you do something, you'll still end up feeling empty because it still doesn't live up to the hype. To me, summer is what you make of it. Personally, last summer was the best I've ever had and this summer is going to be no different, if not maybe even a little better.

So what exactly made last year so enjoyable for me? The pleasant surprise that came in the form of the fighting game genre. Prior to last summer, I was a little intimidated by the technical proficiency that was required in players. All I ever knew about fighting games was button mashing, and anyone can get bored of that. And then Mortal Kombat came out in 2011, and it single handedly gave me a fascination with fighters. Naturally, that took up a huge chunk of my summer, and I still hunt tirelessly for stronger opponents online and offline.

This summer I'm hoping to hang out with some friends and build stronger relationships with old and new friends alike. There are also a few games I'm hoping to play, such as Dragons Dogma and the Uncharted series, just to name a few.

This summer, I'm really just looking for some adventure every once in a while, whether they're big or small is immaterial to me.

First post: This is just to clear things up!

This actually isn't my first blog. I made my first blog last year for an assignment in my high school media class. What started off as a desperate attempt at making easy marks became a very enjoyable past time for me. Now I find it to be a great way to keep my writing skills in use, a fun way to pass the time, and a suitable outlet for whatever stress/frustrations I may encounter in my life (think of it like a punching bag but with letters and articles).

So what will this blog be about?

For the most part, it'll be mostly me talking about current events from my perspective, just like a typical blog. This blog will outline my opinions on music, movies, books, the occasional newspaper/online article (I'm a sucker for controversy), and my personal favourite: video games! Of course, these are simply just my opinions, and I'm sure plenty of readers have opinions that are far different from mine.

Can we share our opinions with you/ask you questions?

Absolutely. You can either contact me by Twitter, my Youtube channel, or simply just drop a comment in one of my posts. All my contact information can be found in to the side of this page. If I find your opinion fascinating enough, I may even dedicate a full post to address whatever questions you may have about me. I'm not all business in this blog, so we're all allowed to have fun with this!

One of my personal issues with my previous blog was that I was inconsistent. Sometimes I'd feel motivated to write several posts at once, other times I wouldn't touch the blog for weeks. A big reason why I decided to start this blog was not only to have a clean slate, but to train myself to turn in good writing whether I was up to it or not. I guess you can say it's a sort of ambition...

That's all for my intro post for now. Until next time, enjoy the Shocker!