Punch Out

Another amazing accomplishment in the history books:

My girlfriend Alyssa, my confidant B Lau, and myself, have beaten the Punch Out series.
That's right - the entire series.

Punch Out Wii came out recently. It's a redux of the 1997 NES game "Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!".

Punch-Out (1987)

In the series, you are Little Mac, an (apparently) 17 year old tiny boxer who takes on many colorful characters in the ring. Very simple gameplay - you have two buttons for punching (right and left fists), a directional pad (for dodging and aiming punches high or low) and a third button for a "Star Punch" (special attack that does more damage) - these controls apply to the original NES version, the SNES version, and the new Wii version.
Although a very very very simple set of controls, it based itself around your opponents and their different styles and attacks. Punch Out was one of the most popular Nintendo titles of all time. Super Punch Out was also very similar to the original game, with updated graphics and characters

Super Punch-Out (1994)

When Punch Out Wii was released last week, I played it, really enjoyed it, bought it (yes, bought it after) and got to the final opponent in the game. I then decided to beat Punch Out (NES) and Super Punch Out (SNES) with Alyssa and B Lau, and only THEN finally beat Punch Out Wii (Wii) and that we did.

Punch-Out Wii (2009)

All three games are amazingly tough. Like, surprisingly (and frustratingly) difficult, but one of my favorite series ever.
I will also point out that (besides the $2.99 copy of mini-game Link's Crossbow Training) this is the first game for Wii that I felt I should buy and own because of how much I enjoyed it.

New challenges in Punch Out? If I go back and beat Punch Out Wii all the way through AGAIN, I unlock Donkey Kong (who I'm sure will be near-impossible to beat).
Also - check out this weirdness: After the success of the original Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (1987)!!, another company intended to release an NES 'spiritual' sequel, calling it "Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch".
This follow-up was slated to star Mike Tyson, and not Little Mac as the protagonist.
The former heavyweight champion started to have public marital and personal problems, and was eventually arrested and brought to court for rape charges in 1991.
Mike Tyson’s Intergalactic Power Punch never got released, apparently due to both licensing and quality issues.
Now, years and years later, a playable version of Mike Tyson’s Intergalactic Power Punch has been made available for anyone to download and play, presumably with an NES emulator.
The story behind the rom's release began three weeks ago when Jason "DreamTR" Wilson -- known by many in video game collecting circles for his stockpile of rarities and prototypes -- notified the NintendoAge community that he would be willing to dump the data from his prototype cart of Mike Tyson’s Intergalactic Power Punch for $2000.
Over 50 of NintendoAge.com's forum members raised that $1500, with a couple donating $100 or more, and others even selling games from their own collections to scrounge up contribution money.
The rom is now available for anyone to download - unfortunately, Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch is terrible. You can see footage of it here, recorded by NESguide:

- taken (in paraphrased form) from gamesetwatch.com

So I could do that too. Yeah. No.

Fan-Made Fantastica

After spending all day in the hospital with my wonderful girlfriend (who had to have her appendix taken out), I came out and found a few interesting things online.

The first: Fan-made trailer for "The Green Lantern"
This is the best fan made trailer I've ever seen. The person who put it together used about 20 - 30 different movie/tv sources to create a piece of video made to look like the trailer to The Green Lantern. It is unbelievable. check it out:


The other thing I found was another fan-made piece of work I really enjoyed.
In Gremlins 2, there's a part in the movie where the film breaks and it is meant to look like Gremlins have either ruined the film (if you saw it in theatres) or ruined your VHS tape of the movie (if you are watching it on VHS).
Well, this guy took that part and edited in his own Gremlins - seriously - and scenes from Batman, The Goonies, Indiana Jones, and more. Came out great:


How did this guy do it? Why, he molded his own plastic/rubber Gremlins of course. Yeah...video from the guy explaining the process:


The coolest stuff comes from independent artists.

Chuck Staton is a hero

Well, I've accomplished one of the most important things that I ever will accomplish, so I decided to post it here.
I usually stray away from my specific "modding"/"piracy" involvement, but not when it's something as important as this is.
Long ago, I fell in love with a certain video game peripheral for the Super Nintendo. It was called the Super Scope Six.

The only game I had that worked with the Super Scope?
Yoshi's Safari.

Yoshi's Safari (called "Yoshi Road Hunting" in Japan) is a "rail-shooter" (a first person shooter that moves on it's own - you know, like in arcades) where you are Mario, with a huge bazooka (the Super Scope Six), and you kill enemies while riding Yoshi.
The story was that King Koopa (and his no-good kids) had taken a bunch of jewels from Jewelry Land (this is true) and you had to go through levels and defeat them one-by-one.


Anyway - I just found out last night that you could put an emulator on the Wii that emulates SNES games. I have no need for this really, but I downloaded it and threw it on just to see if it had Super Scope support (you know, because the Wii-motes all have the lightgun capabilites).
Needless to say, it did.

Through hours of index-finger torment, I overcame all the Koopas, including one that looked suspisciously like Tom Wells riding a giant frog

and King Koopa, who liked he had been combined with Shredder from the Ninja Turtles.


I really want to acknowledge God on this one. I think he'd be the most....jealous.

Uncharted 2/ GH 5 details

Okay let's get this out of the way first - GH 5 is going to be the next step.
I've always disliked the lack of design and detail in Rock Band. It's just boring. Playing the songs with your friend is fun (although easier than GH) but the game itself is boring - GH has always been better, design-wise and all-around feel-wise.
But Rock Band ALWAYS had the upper hand, because whenever a new Rock Band game came out, you could add all the songs to your newest library (meaning when Rock Band 2 came out, I transferred my 60 or 70 Rock Band 1 songs to my Rock Band 2 library and sold my Rock Band 1 game back to Gamestop, and still had all the songs). Same thing with DLC songs for any Rock Band game...I have almost 300 songs in my Rock Band library.
GH never had this option - if I want to play "Jessica" (featured in GH 2) I have to go back to that old game disc to do so - and now there have been five GH games for Xbox 360 (seven by this fall). This also means if you bought DLC songs for GH 3, they don't show up in GH 4.
GH 5 details have been revealed - what's been added is DLC support for GH 4 (which means all DLC bought from last October and from now on) will work with it, and also that as many players can play an instrument at a time as you want (four people can jam out on four guitars - or drums, or vocals - together on one song).
These are awesome steps, but I'm hoping to God they will allow you to add the GH songs from previous games to your GH 5 library (to an extent: keep reading), and allow song additions from there on out - and I think this is possible, because starting with GH 4, each game came with a unique user code (just like Rock Band games). So far they've been used to get some free songs (GH 4) and some codes haven't been used at all (Metallica) - but because these same codes have been included in Rock Band solely for the purpose of adding that game's songs to one big library, I'm thinking this is what they will do (especially now that they are releasing all the old, pre-drum/mic songs with drums and vocals, in new games) and it looks to be that way. Let's all hope together.

and the reason I posted - five minutes of unbelievable Uncharted 2 footage:

More Uncharted 2: Among Thieves News & Previews

Hilarious Spiderman Comics

So a while back, someone took existing Spiderman comics and changed the wording.
I didn't check who did this, as I am too lazy for that. See why I'm a journalist? Thumbs up!
Anyway - there were about 20 - I picked what I think were the best ones - hope you enjoy them (before you view them, realize that these are not all connected at all - each one is just three panels, self-contained).

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I think this has been done before with Garfield as well. I'll have to check (by the way - there is a Garfield comic maker - http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/starslp/missionz/comic.htm - so make some yourselves.

In final weird-ass news, Bill Hader and Seth Meyers (from SNL) have written a one-shot issue of Spiderman, entitled "The Short Halloween".
I know all you Batman fans are wondering if it's a parody of the legendary "Long Halloween" Batman story, and I don't think it is - just a parody of the title. It's out today in comic book stores. I, for one, am picking it up.

Puh puh poker face

Okay so as most people know, I'm really into pop music in general. When Lady Gaga came out with the single "Pokerface", it was the type of song that I thought was pretty good. Catchy - honestly, it had a hook that seemed very familiar to me (especially the "can't read my, can't read my" part) and didn't stand out, but was still alright.
If you don't know the song, check it out (along with the video) here:

Lady Gaga - New Music - More Music Videos

Okay, so it's a dance-y pop song. The music video is either exactly what a music video should be, or exactly what it shouldn't be.
Regardless - nothing too spectacular, right?
Well, that's where you're wrong. Am I referring to the fact that she refers to her vagina as a muffin while pointing at it? No (but that is definitely spectacular).
Check this out. This is the same person - and also the same song.



Yeah. This is ridiculously awesome and impressive to me. That's all.

Bam Margera's perfect dropkick

Tonight I saw Bam Margera and his "buddy" Novak in Portsmouth, and Bam hit him with such a sick, awful, killer dropkick, that I had to shake my head.
I remembered that he caught him with a similar dropkick in "Where The Fuck Is Santa?" (the Christmas DVD release from Bam) that I had to look it up on Youtube.
What I found was a third dropkick, exactly the same, just as high, just as perfect, just as awful and painful. This makes me feel like Bam and Novak understand it's like, their "thing" they do. Except:
A. It must kill Bam. I was about four feet away from Bam tonight, and the floor of the bar shook like someone dropped a ton of bricks onto the ground
B. If it kills Bam, then it doubly/perhaps-triply murders Novak. It takes him completely off his feet and he never is looking at Bam when he does it.
Here's the kick: