Blog Posts from "Howy420's blog"

Top 5 things that make you HARDCORE

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:13:54 -0400

Hey again g1's its 12 at night (Im in canada), I had a inspiring thought so I figured I better write this town while its in my head. Today I intend to make a list of the top 5 thingd that make you a hardcore gamer. This may not appeal to you well... if your not hardcore but hey who dosen't think they're hardcore were reading blogs on a gaming website ahahaha! So here we go. Number 5 Your a fan boy The Halo Kid I don't care what it is, your some sort of fanboy if you consider yourself hardcore. Im not refering to the 360 ps3 "mine is better" fanboys, Im talking about people who are fanboys for Ninja Turtles, Batman, oldschoolgames or anything related to gaming in some way shape or form. Usually anyone whos into gaming has theirs. Number 4 You've waited in a line Line up outsite EB games for Wrath Of The Lich King So, if you've waited in a line for any exclusive be it wii, halo or anything I'de say your fairly hardcore. Theres always the people you see in line that don't really look the crowd you can tell they don't like admiting they're hardcore but I'de say I see more of these people in line ups for World Of Warcraft exspasions. Number 3 You go to tournaments Diago after winning at EVO So if you've been to any sort of tournaments and I don't just mean local Im talking about online aswell you should consider youself hardcore. There's not really much to say but if your devoted enough to a game to wait your turn to show off your skills then you've got some dedication. Number 2 atleast 50% of free time Some kid who won't move ahahaha So Im saying this because thats usually about the minimum of my free time I spend daily playing games or doing something game related. Im talking about ANYTHING game related, you don't necessarily have to be playing games I mean looking at games, talking about games even bloging about games anything really that invovles games. Number 1 Meeting someone online then actually getting togehter with them in real life. Yes in my opinion this is probley one of the most hardcore things you can do when it comes to gaming. Just some highway driving Meeting someone and then playing enough games with them to the point where you actually form a friendship strong enough for one to travel however far it is just to meet hang out and play some games with one and other. Im saying this from personal experience because I've made more then one friend through gaming that I've traveled cross country to hang out with. Once I actually had a friend I played Warcraft with for 2 years travel from New Jersey to Ontario... and he took the wrong way and ended up in detroit so he took a good 15-20 hours to get here ahahahah. So that was it for my top 5 list of things that make you HARDCORE. sorry for the length but Im in Canada and its 1 in the morning so time to put the gaming related stuff away and get some sleep for school ahaha, thanks for reading. g1Howy420

The Garage Sale Hunter Episode #2

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:54:44 -0400

Hello again fellow g1's, Im here today to bring you another great episode of The Garage Sale Hunter! Today as last time, I had to drive about a hour out of town to pick up a N64 in another add I found on Kijiji.ca, I already have a few but as usual Im buying the lot just for the games. So first off we have.. Just a basic black console with no exspansion pack. I was a little disappointed with this just because I hadn't been givin any of the system information so I was hoping it would be a watermelon pink or automic purple or something other then standard black. Ill deal with it though Im sure Ill get some of the other version's at some point. Next we have The accessories, I wasn't told what I was getting just got told "some extra stuff" so this was nice. The blue controller is cool because I don't have one that color. A couple of extra memory packs which Im sure I'll use at some point or give to a friend who needs one,something and its nice to have a few diffrent brands. A rumble pack which is ok because I have one but its nice to have a second one now so a friend can use one and its one with a feature to turn it on high or low. Finally we have a transfer pack which I didn't have, Im actually going to be playing pokemon red or blue so I can transfer some monsters to stadium tonight. And now the games Fifa 99, Crusin USA, Zelda Ocarina Of Time, In The Zone 98 and Starfox64. Im fairly happy with this grab because none of them are doubles of games I already have and I've been looking for a copy of Starfox but didn't want to pay a premium price online. And some more games Quake, International Superstar Soccer, Banjoe-Kazooie, Glover and War Gods. none of there's are doubles again with the acception of Banjoe-Kazooie. Im fairly happy with these as well because I was looking for a copy of Quake and from what I remember Glovers a fairly good game. So today after traveling a hour and paying $10 for gas plus the $50 CAD for the system, accessories and games I think it was a fair deal. I've found alot better before but I was buying it because I havn't been able find anything on Kijiji latly so I was taking what I found. I'm probley going to look at garage sales tomorow morning so hopeully I find some more. Thanks for reading again, g1 Howy420.

Howy420's Mario Party Ds Review

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:02:58 -0400

Hello again G1's today Im going to be doing a review for Mario Party DS. Im going to start this off with a couple of my personal thought's and opinion's about the Mario Party series as a whole. Many people who grew up with any of the Mario Party's most likly hold it near and dear to their favorite classic party games. Personally I grew up playing the numbers 1, 2 and 3 but after that I stoped playing them so much more or less because alot of my gaming started to be done alone or online as opposed to with friends. I can't personally say to much about mario party 4 through 7 thoughs are the ones I've so far neglected and from what I hear are not as great as the old ones. If they are anything like number 8 I'de have to agree because in number 8 they really tryed to target the family more because of the nintdo era it was released in as opposed to teens and kids. I know that Mario Party dose target familys because it is a party game but for the original games it was marketed more towards younger people just take a look at this commercial. Is it just me or did these kids use to look alot older? ahahaha. Ok so lets start with the Mario Party DS Review. Mario Party DS US Date Released: Nov 19th, 2007 Developers/Publishers: Hudson Soft/Nintendo The Story The story in this mario party begins when mario leaves the mushroom kingdom and see's some crystals flying in the sky, the next day he gets a aplogy note and invatation to Bowers castle so he gathers up the gang and heads off(jeez you think he would be smarter then this by now.) Bowser shrinks him so Mario and the gang set off to find the sky crystals which will return them to normal size. so you go through the 5 levels. as we all know the mario party games always have a varity of maps, the maps on this as pretty much every map in any mario party can be sometimes awesome and sometimes they can suck. Its very random one minuet yo can be winning and the next at the bottom but if you think about it logically thats how virtually all board games are, snakes and laders being the prime example. These are the maps from Mario Party DS and how they play out. The Maps In The Game Are 1.Wiggler's Garden This is a more basic map with wiggler at the top and a bunch of man eating plants around the board, if you run in to him or any of them you usually just lose a amount of coins. Theres also some flowers with question mark spaces on them that will shoot you to a random spot on the map. 2.Toadette's Music Room In this map as you go around and collect stars the price increase's and drops,the spaces that are usually stars are also replaced with music notes. It gose from 5 coins to 30 and then back to 5 so people can collect mass amounts of stars fairly fast. There's grammaphone's that shoot you directly infront of the star and other instruments like the piano that will give you a amount of coins for compleating a task like repeating the same tones it plays for you. there's also another another instrument that moves the star from where it is to another random place and changes the price. 3.Dk's Stone Statue This map works a little diffrently then any of the others I've played. The star sits at the top of the map, you can buy as many as you have the coins for when you pass and it dosen't move when you buy any. Alot of the question marks on this map send a barrel down a one of two ally ways and everyone ends up losing alot of coins alot of the time. Its a fairly good map cause things can change fairly fast at the last moment on it. 4.Kamek's Libary In this map theres 3 jars that only cost 10 coins, only one of them contains the star, one of them has 5 coins and the third eats you and you lose 10 coins. Any time anyone gets one with the star in it they all reset move places. This makes the map fairly intresting because everyone dosen't know where to go as opposed to where usually everyones running for one place. Kamek sits at the top and when you land infront of you he replaces (or gives if you have nothing) 3 Half-way Dice Blocks, then he switchs you and one of the other plays posistions. theres also books that make you switch spots from the bottom to the top or side to side of the map. 5.Bowser's Pinball Machine Man, I have to say out of every map I've played on any mario party this one screws you around the most. It is constantly throwing you around from one end to the other and theres a spot you can get knocked to where it either gives you a free star or takes everything you have. I actually had a epic ending to a story mode the first time I played this map, me and one of the coms both had 5 stars on the last turn, I had 16 coins and he had 13 with one free for all mini-game left so whoever won that won the game, and it seemed the com knew it because the mini-game was as close as could be. Next up we have the items, Alot of them have been used in other mario partys and are just returning. I can't say for sure whats new and whats not new becauase as I previously said I haven't played 4 through 7. All of the items can be purchased at the store, only 3 items show up at a time when yo go buy and usually at the start its just basic items. To my knowledge the hex's that are in the game are new and havn't appeared in any other mario party but I do know a bit about the hex's. A hex is a item you can get when you pass by a space on the map, you lay the hex on a space and its sort of a trap. If anyone lands on it they have to give you whatever the hex is for, it may be for 10-20 coins or 1-2 stars or even to swap coin amounts which can also backfire. The Normal Items In The Game Are 1.Double Dice Set This is a pretty basic item, use it and you can roll 2 dice in 1 turn. 2.Tripple Dice Set This also is a pretty basic item, if you use it you get to roll 3 dice. Usually I grab as many as I can of these or the double dice sets, the faster you go the more stars you get so its just logical. 3.Half-Way Dice Block This can be very usefull, some people neglect it and act as if its a **** item, but if you got a star 3 spaces infront of you then it helps alot. 4.Warp Dice Block This is also a underestimated item. Usually at the begening of the game Ill pick one up because their only 2 coins, if you get stuck across the map from the star and everyone else is far aswell, then this can win it for you. 5.Snag Bag For some reason the computer seems to LOVE the snag bag. They buy them constantly and use them in a retarded way, for example I have a star pipe a snag bag and a 2 star hex, a computer will use his snag bag on another computer with a 10 coin hex and a double dice set. 6.Block Sensor I've personally only seen this come up in the store a few times, Im pretty sure it only comes up with you play games with 20 or more turns because as the game gose on better items will show up for you to purchase. What it dose is detects a block on the next space that you move to that can either give you a bunch of coins or a star. The item is 15 coins im pretty sure but always worth it. 7.Star Pipe Oh how I love the star pipe, its definitly won the game for me more then once. When you use it it brings you directly to the star and you can buy it right away then roll your dice and it only cost 15 coins. In my opinion sort of a over powered item if someone has enough coins. 8.Grab Bag One of the most kick ass items in the game, the grab bag. When you use it, it gives you 3 random items usually things like star pipes and tripple dice sets. Its a pretty crazy item and you should prettymuch always grab this item when you get the chance, it also only pops up later in games. This Mario Party has all the basic characters Luigi,Mario,Peach,Daisy,Wario,Waluigi,Toad and everyones favorite Yoshi. When you beat the game with diffrent characters you get little unlockables, just pointless things like badges and trophies sort of like SSBB. The Mini-Games All the mini-games are pretty good and make innovative use of the stylus without pushing it on you like most DS games do. Sometimes playing with the computers it some games can be downright retarded though, thats the one downside to the game. If you playing with friends its alot better obviously but sometimes when yor playing with the computer and for example Get The Lead Out comes out as a game. This is one of the hardest button mashers when playing expert com's I think I've ever came up against.In it you have to tap the A button to push lead out of a mechanical pencil. Ive beat things like the soda chugging comp in Chrono Trigger or plenty of button mashing parts in games but this is just REDONKULOUS. Most of the time I cant even get more then a bit over half of what the com dose. this isen't the only ridiclous mini-game when going agains't the com's theres a few more. On the other hand some mini-games are to easy. You go in to them with almost 100% chance to win against the com's if you know what your doing, theres alot more of these then the ones that are ridiculously hard. But as everyone I think knows mario party is a game best played with friends. Bosses The bossed in this game arn't to hard, there isn't much to say about them they don't take a whole lot of skill its usually just do the same thing like smack him with something 3 times. The one boss at the end is sort of unique though. Bowser transforms in a a bunch of stacked crates that look like a dradle and then starts to spin at you, then a cube then some weird shape but as I said all in all the boss fights are fairly simple. Settings The setting in this game are fairly good for a DS game, it has a couple diffrent options such as tag battles (1v1) or team battles (2v2) or the standard free for all's (1v1v1v1.) Conclusion So all in all this is a fairly good game, Im not going to give it a rating because that dosen't mean to much in my opinion. A good game is a good game a bad game is a bad game. If you haven't I would highly suggest going and picking this up and giving it a try, play a couple games with friends first before you go through story because in My opinion the game is alot better with friends, Thanks for reading.

The Blog About Pointless Blogs

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:45:49 -0400

Hello fellow G1's, tonight I am going to talk about something I've been thinking about for a little bit now. It just seems this is the appropriate time considering the amount of pointless blogs im seeing go up latly, especially tonight. I know theres always pointless blogs but Im on SA quite alot, I personally don't blog all that much but I read quite a bit so I definitly have noticed a increase about pointless blogs. I was thinking about it and I was wondering what drives people to do this so I decided to devise somewhat of a list of diffrent blogs. Some are obviously just posted in the wrong place and the person not knowing very well what a blog is, or just not very smart in general decides to post it in the blog section as opposed to the forums. Others are just very ment to be posted as blogs but as people but umm... jokes? I guess, Im talking about the blogs that go something like this "HAY GUEYS WANA PLEY SOM GAYMES??? I amverycool. ThAnKsYoUsFoRrEaDiNg." but these jokes are only laughed at by the people who posted them.... sadly I dont think they really know that. Theres also a third type of blog where someone dose a fairly long blog, its to short to be considered forum worthy but its also just flat out a bad blog. I specificly remeber reading a list a day or two ago (not going to name name's) where someone was making top 5 list of something which is fine don't get me wrong alot of people do top 5 or 10 llists or what have you, but this person was making a list... and heres rougly what they said I dont really want to quote them. I haven't played this game but this internet celeberty guy said it was BAD so im gona stay away from it but it is one of the worst games ever. So... he was making list which was trying to be in order.. and put a game on he had never played, dosen't this sort of defy the purpose of a list, don't you have to actually play the games to give a opinion or a rating? I guess this has turned it to somewhat of a rant but please bare with me ahaha. The last type of blog is the repeat blog. Something where someones clearly posted something and like 100 other people feel the need and urge to repost there own version of it for example.... yesterday morning, I cant really say how many because I diden't click on many but ALOT of people created a blog about the disney/marvel deal, Im not saying they were all bad at all but some were posted within 20 or 30 minuets of eachother and multiple times. Im not saying these are totally pointless because yes some are informative and not bad blogs, but if I've already read about it today chances are I dont wana read a second top on the flavour of the day. Anyways my blog about pointless blogs is coming to a end so I than you for reading, I know this is someone a pointless blog but I figured its something I haven't seen done so I would give it a try. Thanks for reading G1 Howy420

If you cry about juggernaut on CoD5

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:59:51 -0400

Hey G1's, In this blog im going talk and the advantages and disadvantages, the fairness and unfairness and overall just about the perk juggernaut. So the juggernaut perk in Call Of Duty is highly controversial among CoD5 players due mandy players considering it a unfair advantage. If your reading and you don't already know the juggernaut perk in CoD5 allows you to stay up longer while being shot by giving you more life, some players think it is to much life and some players are quite content with it most likly because they use it. This is what it looks like when your being shot and you survive while you have juggernaut on. There has been rumours for a while the perk is going to be changed but to my knowledge there is no announcements of it being changed nor has it been in the past. I personally play CoD5 on a daily basis, and I use juggernaut virtually 95% of the time. I know im probley going to get some flaming for this and alot of the arguements going to be "its not realistic" but to be honost... its a video game and it has its lines. It can be realistic to a point but if your trying to side that as your arguement well then... having a recon in your map isen't realistic nor is reseting grenades when you toss them back or having your bullets do extra damage, over all coming back after you die is not realistic. You can put on stopping power and it dose just about even juggernaut out, but apprently that is not "fair" enough for alot of people. Personally when people start calling me a noob or what have you for using juggernaut I usually tell them they are crying because they think its OP and if they think its OP and they're not using it themselfs... well tacticly its not very smart. So if you do shun people using juggernaut, please stop. Its part of the game and in my opinion fair because if you really think its over powered... you should probley use it. If any of you think Im some new call of duty player preeching just check my records, my presitge isen't very high but thats because i sat at 65 for about 7-8 months, so check my kills. In my opinion juggernaut is fair and its part of the game hopefully to stay. Thanks for reading G1 Howy420

The Garage Sale Hunter Episode #1

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:44:51 -0400

Hello fellow G1's, I have decided to start a bloging series about how I constantly hunt for any sort of retro game system there is thats for a good deal around me. I get up at 8 on saturdays and drive around to garage sales, hit flea markets and check out local adds everywhere I can such ass kijiji, craigs list and the super shopper (a local buy and sell flyer.) I have the money to virtually buy any add I find to its just a matter of is it a good enough deal. To start off I will only be editing with picture's and text but if it dose get attention, I will go buy a camera and start to shoot my finds and when Im going to pick them up ect. So to start this off tonight I drove about a hour away to pick up someones old video game collection they said was gathering dust in a box and they're mother had just droped it off in with other childhood momentums, I found the add using Kijiji.ca Now when I responded to the add it basicly said 5 or 6 games and a system with the cables and a controller (Secret Of Evermore and Zelda being 2 of them) so it was a decent deal off the bat. When I got there to my suprise there was more games then said and several boxed games, at this point I was pretty excited to find out what else I had got. First off we have Mortal Kombat 3, Secret Of Evermore, Killer Instinct, Top Gear, Young Merlin, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, and NHL 95 Every single one of these was complete with the booklets, cardbord inserts, and some of them have the Nintendo Power Subscription panflit. The only thing that is missing unfortinutly is the KI Killer Uncut CD. Next up we have A second copy of Secret Of Evermore (which was not listed), Breath Of Fire, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Winter Olympic Games 95, Zelda A Link To The Past, Super Mario World and Mystical Ninja. Virtually all these games are doubles for me with the exception of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Third we have the system The funny part about this is the add orignally was for the system, and its broken! lol Im not going to complain its my third one and it ended up being a awesome deal anyways. The little flip peice of plastic where the games go in is lodged up like there something under it and won't go anywhere past about a quarter of a inch down, I just kind of laughed when I noticed it and Im taking it as a challange to fix it myself, besides all of that and the fact that it could use a clean the system will be in good condition after I fix it. Last but by far not the least 2 fighter stratigy guides! the MK3 complete stratigy guide and The Ultimate Guide To Fighting Games 1995! which in my are the best finds out of all of it. The MK3 guide is in fairly bad condition and the other one has a page or two ripped out but personally I don't care its the nostalgia most of these fighting games had on me as a child, I played the majority of them so to get a guide now is pretty awsome! The Ultimate Guide To fighting Games has alot of big names in it like SF Alpha, Tekken, MK, KI, Virtual Fighter 2. All in all this ended up being a very good deal for at $50 Canadian for all of it, also factoring in I took a risk with the add being so vague. So this is the end of the first edisode of The Garage Sale Hunter, Thanks for reading its appriciated =D!!!

Rockband Unpluged VS Guitar Hero on Tour

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:09:15 -0400

Rockband Unpluged VS Guitar Hero on Tour So Ill start off by saying im not a HUGE guitar hero or rockband fan, I've played them a fair amount but im far from a GH/RB fanboy. the first game up on the chopping block is guitar hero on tour, The first of the GH's to be released on DS in with a sequal that has already been released and more pending. I turned on the game fairly excited because attachment hoping it would make the game worth while and innovative, to my suprise it was. Besides your fingers slipping around a little the attachment for GH on tour works fairly well. It dose its job of keeping your hand in place and allowing you to hit the buttons, so i was happy (would have been happier with a 5th button.) I proceded to play, after about 7-8 hours of gameplay I had beat the hard campaign. at this point i got a little disappointed when I realised the ease of the game and that I had just played through every song and was not to impressed with the song list. It had a few fun songs like Bloc Party - Helicopters and Blink182 - All the Small Things, but the majority of the list were B song titles and aimed towards a younger audience (I dont blame them I guess its on DS.) even with them been aimed towards a younger audience I feel they could have picked a WAY better list. The multiplayer was fairly well done, I played it a few times with my friend and got some enjoyment out of it but it got boaring fast and we actually said uhhh why are we playing this 2 player on DS.... and we turned on a console, end of story. So its counterpart and nemisis Rockband: Unpluged, I recently purchased it with higher hopes then Guitar Hero on Tour (not saying it was bad it just diden't live up.) The game went on and not to my suprise it looked alot better visualy then Guitar Hero on Tour, Knowing there was no attachment and I was going to have to use the buttons for the notes was sort of a minus. I went to options and the face that there was a "unlock all songs" option put a smile on my face.... no stupid code to enter yay! So i proceded to go to quickplay and go down the song list. It was good and alot better then Guitar Hero on Tours, it had a couple big time A songs such as Lamb Of God - Laid to Rest and 3 Doors down - Kryptonite. I started to play the songs and to my suprise I was fiddling with my hands alot more then I did on Guitar Hero on Tour (I start on hard on most of these games.) I actually found myself dropping to medium for some harder songs, I just couldent do them on hard as is without playing a bit first which made me kind of happy knowing i was going to get a fair amount more gameplay then Guitar hero. You also have to switch between all 4 instruments which is a great game mechanic as opposed to just playing guitar, it allows someone to go all out if they want to and decifer HOW they are going to get the absolute highest score by playing what and when.... not that people go all hardcore like that....^^ I haven't had a chance to play multiplayer yet, but my assumption is its multiplayer, like rockband on a cosole, saving eachother with star power, combining scores, things like that so I have high hopes as is for it, I will update this section as soon as I've played it which should be as soon as I have a friend over So overall if you want your moneys worth Rockband: Unpluged is the way to go for the song list and the harder difficulity level, as well as the band mechanics. To be honost its just a better game when ported over to handhelds overall, and im a fanboy for neither game I hardly play it on console at all anymore. Thanks for reading Regards Howy420.