Rants & Raves

Who...What is the Gunslingers??

2012-02-09T02:38:00.001-06:00

All I can tell you for now is its coming soon and it is linked this song.

drummer by Apocryphic Visions

2011-11-28T00:52:00.000-06:00

Rant & Rave: Best Buy

2011-11-22T16:20:00.006-06:00

So not doubt I'm a fan of the Best Buy company. Usually when I need to get a game/ dvd or anything electronic I would go to them first. My t.v. is from Best Buy, a lot of cd's I own are from them so I am a loyal repeat customer. So when I heard Best Buy was offering a cool pre-order bonus for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 I thought it was a match made in heaven. To top it off, the pre-order bonus was alternate costumes for characters I like like Wesker, Super Skrull and M.O.D.O.K. I was like take my money and for the first time EVER I pre-ordered a game and paid for it up front. I have never done this before, usually I would wait till a game has dropped a little in price before buying because times are tough and I am not rich lol.

I however wanted to be on ground floor for Ultimate MvC 3 so I knew I needed the game on release date so again, pre-ordering was a blessing in disguise and I get a free DLC.

Well I got the game and it was ready for me on the date (had to go through a bit of hoopla for it but I shrugged that off). I was told that my DLC was going to be sent to my email address the day before, the day of or the day after. So I patiently waited.... and waited and waited. Till I could not do it no more.

A few days ago I called them and asked on the status of code. After a lot of holding and behind transferred, I finally got news that the codes were delayed and that they should be sent out 7 days after release date (a far cry from day before, day of or day after for sure). I nodded and said I would call back to make sure.

Again I waited, however last night I was online and a guy was using his DLC Super Skrull outfit and well that stirred a fire in me and I had enough. So today I called them and told them they were going to give me my code. After the long process of holding and behind transferred I finally ended up in the right spot. The customer service rep was very nice and after she finally got the code she was patient enough to walk me through the code a couple times (its 25 freakin' digits) and she sent me a follow up email with the code (so you do have my email address lol).

That is where the rave comes in, she was even nice enough to stay on the line and wait for me to enter the code and made sure it was correct. I appreciate that so kudos to you, Abigail.

However I also have to rant that it was crazy that I had to do all this for something that was promised to me. I worry that if I did not called them and harassed them would they have ever sent out the code in a decent amount of time?

I'm elated I now have my costumes and I'll definitely be using them but this really soured me off Best Buy's pre-ordering. I don't think I'll ever do it again and that's a shame cause as I said at the beginning I was a loyal repeat customer. Shame, shame.

Blue Men Group

2011-11-20T00:51:00.004-06:00

First we had 'Shades of Gray' then I introduced the 'Ambulance crew'. Now I have another color addition which I like to call the 'Blue Men Group'.... Blue Hulk, Blue Iron Man and Blue Strange.

And when Strange's DLC gets released... well they really get blue.

BTW check out my brand new Hulk combo video 'Smash Hulk Smash!' on my new youtube page

www.youtube.com/apocryphicv

The coming of Apocryphicv

2011-11-14T22:53:00.001-06:00

The time has come to close the chapter on one era and begin a whole new saga.

Pigeondrago is dead, long live apocryphicv.

P

Announcement: Apocryphic Audio

2011-11-09T00:37:00.003-06:00

I am proud to announce that when I debut my brand new YouTube page, it'll feature original music created by me.

With the help of Ezemuze + Hamster edition I am creating my own instrumentals for my videos. Now no one shall be able to claim my videos and I believe having original music will put me one step closer to getting a YouTube partnership.

Plus not only will I'll be using my music for my videos I'll also upload songs I have created as well under my re-born music production company Apocryphic Audio.

Be on the look out for that, I promise you'll be surprised.

P

Announcement: XLS

2011-11-04T16:52:00.002-05:00

As I continued my march towards a brand new era of Apocryphic Visions, I am going to keep y'all informed about some of the new stuff that is to come.

Now Xbox Live Sessions was one of the staples of my original youtube page and most of the videos got a fair amount of views. Most of these videos were humorous in nature. A couple months ago, I announced I was going to start a new series called Xbox Live LIVE, however time got away from me and I felt like it wouldn't work, especially since it was for an 'old' game like Tekken 6.

Well Xbox Live Sessions is coming back with a vengeance as XLS: Ultimate Edition. With this series, it'll be me playing online Ultimate Marvel 3 warts and all. The matches will be direct captured and some of them may even feature commentary from yours truly.

Now without further ado, I present the brand new logo for this series.

Come Nov. 16th... prepare for the Ultimate.

P

Bucket List

2011-11-04T03:44:00.002-05:00

So it's been quiet over here mainly for two reasons.

1. I've been hella busy with school work and trying to get these last assignments done and dusted.

2. Recent color blogs for Shuma, Ryu and Sentinel haven't really excited me like previous blogs.

However with Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 on the horizon, I decided to check my bucket list in regards to the original version.

1- Found a good team and stuck with it (CHECK) 'Shades of Gray' really do work well together and I enjoy using a team with characters I like.

2- Did well in tournaments (NO CHECK). I only attended one real tournament for Marvel 3 (Iowa) and I also went to each Marvel 3 ranbat last season. Unfortunately at both I went 0-2. Pretty upset with myself. Hopefully I can turn it around come Ultimate.

3- Got people with Deadpool/ Trish glitch online and off (CHECK) LOL it's soooo stupid. I am happy it's gone but at the same time, thanks for the memories.

4- Hit someone with Hulk's infinite online (CHECK) Poor Dormmy player... had no idea what hit him.

5- Made combo videos with direct capture and not wide screen (CHECK) Armory.... proofs in the pudding.

6- Made people fear my Hulk (CHECK) Respect my super armor and my ability to spam standing heavy all day.... I don't give a f**k.

7- Beat up a lot of Phoenix abusers (CHECK) Learn how to play the game... damnit.

8- Ended my Marvel 3 online record with more wins then losses (CHECK) 100 plus more wins last time I checked.

So other then one and it was an important one :-(, I pretty much filled all my boxes. I think my foray back into the world of Marvel was a success.

Now I look forward to the future and really making a name for myself.

P

A New Logo for a New Era

2011-10-26T15:59:00.003-05:00

Here it is... the new Apocryphic Visions logo.

This logo will be affixed to all my new projects and you'll be seeing a lot of it.

The new era of AV is almost here.

P

P.S. I am still pretty much a noob at animation but I think it came out pretty well.

Bucky Cap!!

2011-10-25T17:10:00.003-05:00

It's a shame Bucky Cap is available now after his death in 'Fear Itself'... I am seriously thinking of using an 'Avengers' squad come Nov. So many cool options!

Oh and damn is this alternate cool as Hell as well.

He'll fit in perfect with Shades of Gray.

P

The Defenders!!

2011-10-21T16:53:00.006-05:00

Looks like Ultimate Marvel 3 is going to be filling a lot of bases with its proper teams you can build. Like this one.

All we need now is a Silver Surfer cameo/ DLC.

P

RAVES: 'Ambulance' Team

2011-10-20T23:04:00.004-05:00

Whilst I love my 'Shades of Gray' team, Ultimate Marvel 3 allows me to unleash a brand new look.

Ladies and Gentleman... the 'Ambulance' team... named because after they hit you, you'll need an ambulance to take you away.

Nov. 15 th can't come soon enough.

P

RAVE: Ultimate Marvel's new colors

2011-09-17T18:58:00.004-05:00

http://fans.marvel.com/marvel_interactive/blog/2011/09/02/storm_alternates_in_ultimate_marvel_vs._capcom_3

As a big fan of Marvel vs Capcom 3 (*cough* first combo video out *cough*) I, for one is hella excited for Ultimate Marvel 3.

I'm going to write a longer blog about it soon but for now I am going to rave about the new color choices. Every character now has 6 alternate colors and to top it off DLC costumes as well.

The sweet thing is some of my least favorite colors have been overhauled and re-done. A great example is this Storm one

Another thing is Dr. Strange's cool alternate colors like this one, which you know are going to be added to my 'Shades of Gray' remix team (Existing member plus Ghost Rider/ Strange?)

HELL YEAH man... I'm hyped, November is just around the corner. Time to pre-order.

P

Lucky 7 is Live

2011-06-20T15:28:00.002-05:00

http://apocryphicvideos.blogspot.com

Check out Cincinnati/Dayton/ N. Kentucky and Columbus' combo video collaboration.

Exclusive to my blog is 'Behind the Visions' an exploration of the video with tidbits and what nots.

Also to quote Frank Sintra and many other lounge singers "The Best is Yet to Come"!

P

'Writer's Wall' christened

2011-05-11T12:59:00.002-05:00

Well 'Writer's Wall' has finally got it's first blog entry since it had been re-christened. Do check it out, the link to the blog is on the side of this blog (just click on the lovely picture of Inara from Firefly, you know you want to).

'Writer's Wall' is my ongoing blog about my writing, so if anything is happening on that front, you'll see a post there. Right now, most of my writing is focused on my new short story 'Inter-section'. Hopefully, it won't fall into dis-repair again (lol the last time I posted on that blog was back in 2009... yeah, 2 years ago).

Speaking of dis-repair, I need to write a proper blog for 'Rants & Raves' again. Might change up the look of this blog too. Just to keep things fresh.

P

Blogs Reborn

2011-02-23T17:30:00.003-06:00

What's up peoples.

So my old blog 'Run: Side by Side" has been re-christened "Writers' Wall". This blog will now be dedicated to any writing I do. This includes my project which I am working on right now which is called 'iNtER-SeCTIon' (yes it is supposed to look like that).

I'll be updating the look of it too but nothing too fancy. I'm also keeping the music mainly because I love that song.

So check it out when you got a minute.

In regards to 'Rants & Raves' I'll write a proper blog as soon as I can.

P

Op: Darkness- Eliza is GREAT

2011-01-15T19:49:00.003-06:00

I hope to write a corresponding blog as I went deeper and deeper into Op: Darkness. However I've been playing so much that I haven't had the time to blog lol.

Back to the game. I'm really enjoying it, it's quickly becoming one of my new obessions (lol my wife especially doesn't like my unhealthy passion for it).

As I get deeper into the game, I have a full team. Lewis, who was introduced early in the game is now a permanant character and he is pretty cool. His voice actor does a cool accent. Jack the Ripper is also a squad member and it's the Ripper of legend. His a good guy (more on the historical characters later). His pretty sweet with blades and general bad-ass attitude. Finally the last new member is Alisa Van Helsing, Abraham Van Helsing's daughter and probably my favorite character in the game because she is hella cool. She one of the best character designs I have seen in a minute.

So as I mentioned it's cool how this game has so many historial and mythical characters. I've already mentioned Jack the Ripper, Elisa is the daughter of famed vampire hunter Van Helsing (of Dracula fame). Herbet West is named after the re-animator made popular by H.P Lovecraft (Cthulhu linkage) and Carmilla is also a famous female vampire and of course, Hitler.

Speaking of vampires, I now know why Jude sucks and didn't get no cool powers.
**SPOILERS** It's because he was destined to be turned into your nemesis and become evil because he was turned by Vlado (the main bad guy). **end SPOILERS**

It was a nice twist and one I did not see coming.

Now onto the bad. I mentioned it before but having to watch every single dialogue cut-scene again and again after you fail a mission is so lame. I can't believe the game designers didn't see the flaw in this. Sure you can fast forward the cinematics and the dialogue scenes can be fast forwarded but it's a chore. On top of the can't save during battles crap it's one of my biggest annoyances with the game.

Another thing I found out is 'Dead is Dead'. If Herbert doesn't re-animate a dead squad mate, that person stays dead for the rest of the game and you lose that person's skill set. Ohh and to top it off, you get the bad ending as well. Hah! It's not really a bad flaw (like above points), it does add a lot more strategy to the game and makes you want to keep your squad alive no matter what. It's different but people mention other srpg's have this mechanic so I guess they'll were being true to the genre.

All in all, I like the game more then it drives me crazy so I'm enjoying myself. More blog on Op: Darkness to come.

P

P.S. The Super Sniper Rifle rules.

RAVE: Cthulhu Saves the World

2011-01-12T00:40:00.003-06:00

It was a short but boy was it an action packed ride. Cthulhu Saves the World was sublime experience.

The game played like a dream and I really enjoyed every moment of it. Sure some dungeons got confusing but that's their purpose, you work your way through them and when you explore off the beaten track, you find juicy stuff.

I really have to say I enjoyed the following

-Humor. All the humor was not forced at all with some really laugh out loud moments for me. I can't say I had this much time laughing with a game since Breath of Death VII.
-Characters. All the characters were well designed and all had massive amounts of charisma. Cthulhu is in a world of his own tho, probably the most verbose RPG character ever which is so rare in a genre of silent protagonists.
-Battle System. Just like BoD VII system but a lot of stuff is added and subtracted (healing items breaking combo count) that made it feel even better.
-Limit on random battles. Ahh I wish all games had this. And if you want to grind and get more levels you can always pick a fight lol. Smart!
-Everyone levels up. Another awesome idea that I wish other games borrow. The fact that un-used party members still level up like normal is great for when you want to create a new team. Also it's a smart way of making sure you try all the characters.
-The graphics. A massive step up from BoD VII, towns look awesome and very reminiscent of Shining Force games (one of my fave series). In game graphics and animations are sweet to watch as well.
-The soundtrack. Awesome, already downloaded it and loving it.
-The story. It's a spin on a time old tale. It's no Lost but it hits all the right notes.

However as much as I love this game, I do have some small gripes with it.
-Save/ Restore only active party. It's strange that when you save your whole party Magic Points are not restored, only the active members.
-Item/ Equip/ Selling. This system still feels awkward. It's better then BoD VII because you can now sell items/ armor but the fact you need to equip items and un-equip items to sell them feels not streamlined. It's getting there tho so I know the next game will be a even bigger improvement.
-Highlander difficulty. It was a really surprise that I didn't get pwned much in the normal mode of the game. However Highlander's difficulty is a real challenge. Being able to only use 1 character and still having to fight tons of enemies? Hopefully after I buff my characters a bit more I won't see the game over screen so much.

All in all tho, I can't front, this is one of my favorite games I have played on my Xbox 360. I eagerly wait the next chapter in the Zeboyd saga. I highly recommend this game to any one. Not even just RPG fans. Any one can get into this game and enjoy it. It's that GOOD.

P

I'm going insane and I LIKE it.

2010-12-31T03:41:00.004-06:00

The game I have waited month upon months is FINALLY here.

Cthulhu Saves the World by Zeboyd games is the follow-up to arguably my favorite RPG I have played on the Xbox 360.

And much like Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, everything feels right with the world. The humor is actually bonafide good. I love all the inside jokes (heros respawning in a church LMFAO), the visuals are better, the music is glorious (need to get that OST) and the game plays like a dream. Like BoD VII, the difficulty in CStW feels just right. There is so much done right in this game. I enjoy set limits on random encounters, I love the branching level up system, I love getting new USEFUL party members and I'm only half way threw the game.

This game made me put aside Operation Darkness in a heartbeat after playing the first 5 mins. I love Op: Darkness no doubt but this is the game I was waiting for and to be playing it and enjoying it. Well it's a late Christmas present but it's a great Christmas present. Plus to top it off, it cost me 3 bucks!! Insanity! (Cthulhu pun intended).

I'm going back in!!

Oh btw game update.

Operation Darkness: yep
Left 4 Dead: yep
Battle Fantasia: nope, wasn't available.
F.E.A.R: Nice replacement.
Ninja Gaiden II outfits: yep
Limbo: no. I might skip it even through it'll be dirt cheap today. I'll wait for another special I guess. In it's place
Epic Dungeon: enjoyed the demo. Part of the Indie Game Uprising and it's a rpg-ish. Sold.
Decay: Indie game, 80 points, horror theme... got the trial... maybe?
Got some more other indie games to check out too.
and

Cthulhu Saves the World: Hell yeah!

P

Op: Darkness Day 3

2010-12-30T03:37:00.003-06:00

So today I moved a lot further into my new obsession.

I finally meet two of the main villains of the game and both are designed pretty well. Ahh werewolves and vampires, never the two shall get along LOL.

One thing I called from day one was that mysterious Cordelia (aka your love interest) was a German or in this case, half-German. It was still however a nice reveal moment and I felt the characters are truly getting closer.

Jude still drives me insane with his super slow movement AND he doesn’t learn no magic spells or talents or anything. I guess that’s because he was not ‘touched’ (no pun intended) by ‘The Wolf Pack’.

Carmilla (interesting the three main girls name start with C. Cordelia, Cynthia and now Carmilla) is an awesome design, super sexy and evil and owned the Hell out of me multiple times before I finally got the jump on her. I hope she is a reoccurring character.

Speaking of, the difficulty went up considerable after Level 6 for sure. Level 6 was the demo level and I was destroyed a couple times before I finally got my strategy down. Ironically up to Level 6, I was doing awesome with rarely having to restart battles at all. Well this time, I got to Level 6 with my demo strat and I smashed it.

Then along came Level 7 and boy, I was not ready. I must have continued at least 8-9 times. However once again, once you figure out your game plan, it’s on.

I am really enjoying myself however the game is not without some big flaws which are beginning to stick out.

First is the very annoying inability to skip talk scenes. Especially after you have seen said talk scenes 8-9 times because you keep losing. Second is the inability to save mid battle. There is no save feature mid battle which is not cool at all (Shining Force had it right). I can’t understand why they don’t allow the above two. I really don’t look forward to the day when I’m in the middle of a long battle, close to beating the stage and I get called away on an urgent matter. It’s basically putting a lot of hours to waste.

Other then these flaws, I’m really enjoying myself and I hope it continues to challenge me and keep me coming back for more (which it has).

P

P.S. Hah there is a character called Leona! Too bad she doesn’t have blue hair like my favorite KOF character.

RAVE: SRPG's and Operation Darkness

2010-12-29T01:53:00.004-06:00

What?! The blog is resurrected! Much like Nazi zombies... but more on that later.

So I was originally going to blog about this on 'Apocryphic Videos' but I realized that this blog would be much more suitable on my original blog.

On to the game itself. I am a massive fan of Strategy Role Playing Games (SRPG's). One of my favorite games of all time is 'Shining Force II' by Climax/ Team Sonic/ Sega. I am a role playing gamer but SRPG's have always had a soft place in my heart
thanks to said game. So it's to my dismay that the SRPG is being faded out to the point where even the originators Climax stopped making 'Shining' Strategy games. Now don't get me wrong, I like these new wave RPG's like Mass Effect and what not BUT I really want my games of old back. I'm old school like that. So when I found out I had the monies to pick up a game with a hardcore strat RPG base I jumped.

I picked up the demo and played it continuously, even through I was getting owned every twenty minutes (SRPG are time consuming affairs believe me) I still kept coming back for more. This made me know for sure I'll had to buy it.

So Operation Darkness is pretty sweet. Sure the graphics and sound ain't nothing to write home about the core is the SRPG and it does what it does well. We have a story which follows the nameable hero and his team. Like all good SRPG's I have played, I find myself getting invested with the characters. Right now my faves have to be Cynthia the sniper, mysterious Cordelia and the leader of the crew, James Gallant. Whilst I am not a big fan of the main setting (World War II, that's more up my step-dad Val's alley) the fact it's an alternative history with werewolves, zombies and vampires included makes it much more in my vein of games. I remember I liked Bloodrayne for the same reason, the alternative take on history, oh and hot vampires LOL.

So I'm moving through the campaign right now and doing good on and off. I really like how this game allows you to customize your squad and crazy stuff which never occurred to me before like carrying too many items can slow your character down is definitely a plus in my book. It's filled to the brim with stats which goes hand in hand with strats.

Another thing I dig is how the game is played, since we are using guns, rockets and tanks, it's completely different then a fantasy SRPG which I am learning first hand. Guns have sweet range and rockets wipe out whole squads. I also know later on, magic powers are unlocked for all characters so that'll be something to see as well.

I'll report back in again after I get further into the game but so far I am liking this trip into darkness.

P

P.S now how to make Jude move faster... damnit boy, move!!

The End... for now.

2010-10-21T20:22:00.004-05:00

So blog wise I haven't post anything in a minute. It is ironic because I'm not working or doing anything like school anymore however I can not seem to dedicate some time to blogging.

On top of this, my uncle passed away and it has really put me and my whole family in a weird place.

In all honesty I think I might stop writing for this blog and just keep my Apocryphic Visions blog up to date with combo vids, updates and stuff like that.

I might come back to this blog but for now consider this shop closed for business.

New Logo... Same Good Stuff

2010-09-04T04:02:00.002-05:00

So it's nearly the end of the year but the last couple months of 2010 are going to be pretty busy with brand new projects from my production company, Apocryphic Visions. To celebrate that I have re-designed the logo for the hundredth (lol I am of course exaggerating but it has been a couple re-designs) time.

It's pretty close to most AV logos with purple and black being predominant in it. The AV logo is the same mainly because it's became a symbol so I don't feel a need to change it now after I have established it in all my videos.

A subtle change is the text. Apocryphic Visions now looks much more grand thanks to a helping hand from Microsoft Word of all things.

I just felt the need to share this with y'all and let everyone know this logo will be popping up a lot more sooner then later.

Onwards

pP

Back

2010-08-03T12:57:00.002-05:00

So I'm back. It's been a minute mainly because my upstairs computer has been down.

It's finally back up, it's not 100% but what can I do?

During the time when I didn't blog, I got paid then screwed over which wasn't fun at all.

I am currently playing through Batman: Arkham Asylum, which isn't half bad. I really like how it plays but the combat to me leaves alot to be desired. Everything else is awesome.

Since I'm officially back back, I will be uploading a new music player plus going back to work on 'Helping Hand' videos.

More to come.

pP

P.S. LOL I get spammed at least once a week now by these random Chinese/ Korean/ Japanese people... thanks, your comments ain't being added BUT I do enjoy the page views!

Long Time

2010-06-29T01:09:00.002-05:00

... no blog.

So my computer which I used to do alot of my projects is down due to no fault of mine.

Also because my main computer is down I haven't been able to update my blog either. I can make a music player for this month but it is more work then fun for me right now.

I am just annoyed that I don't have my own computer to do anything.

Maybe in the new month I will feel like getting back on horse but yeah June is a bust.

pP

P.S. Random comment people... I hope you enjoy being blocked because that's what I am going to keep doing.

Wrap It Up

2010-05-25T12:05:00.003-05:00

Well, it's that time of the year again. TV season finales and a couple series finales. Now I am a serious tv watcher (which is ironic because back when I was in Australia I didn't watch much tv at all). Now most of the shows are over, I feel like putting my 2 cents on how they ended.

Heroes: One of my favorite shows but it seems to be a real hard show for critics to like or for fans to accept. I have never followed a show which has been dogged by critics so hard. Sure, the show had a couple mis-steps (the whole of season 2, Claire being undeniabably stupid soo many times, characters doing 180 in their motivation) and I can't deny that but as a whole, the show was enjoyable and most of the characters have a place in my heart. With the announcement that the last season was the final season, it was a shock. The show still has stories to tell and I hope it gets that chance.

24: I was never a massive fan of 24. I liked the concept when the show came out and watched a couple episodes. It was not until I came to the US and watched tv with my family that I got into it. I can seriously say I have commited 2 and half seasons to 24 and those 2 and a half seasons were very enjoyable. Again like Heroes, people say this finale is merely a spring-board to a movie so I don't know for sure if the story is over yet but it ended well. Jack didn't die, him and Chloe are cool and the bad guys got what was coming to them including the President.

Lost: The big one. Unlike Heroes or 24, Lost's ending has been planned since the end of Season 3. So did they pull it off? I say yes. It wasn't as pieced together as I and others hoped but it delivered. Epic showdown between Jack and MIB? Check. Reunions with cast members we haven't seen in a minute? Check (nice to see Shannon and Sayid together again). A explaination for everything? Umm no, but I don't think that was the writers intentions. They wanted to keep things up for interpretation and people will be discussing it for awhile. I enjoyed it through and I think Lost will go down as one of my favorite series of all times (a spot held by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and umm, that's it).

Fringe: OMG hurry up with the third season already... Oliva being held captive. William Bell's death. Mirror Universe invading ours! An awesome end to an awesome season. Oh and Olivia looks smoking hot as a red head. Hope she keeps that look for a bit.

There were other shows (CSI, Private Practice, Desperate Housewives) but that's my main bunch that I really follow.

Another thing I am really disappointed about is the new shows coming out from all networks really haven't caught my eye. Hopefully something comes along to fill the void left by my favorite shows ending this year.

pP

'Jungle Jim' Preview

2010-05-20T16:09:00.003-05:00

So one of the things I have been mucking around with is this new game I got on Xbox Live. It is an indie game called 'Newton's New Tones'. It is a basic but fun to muck around with music maker. Now it is nothing complex but it gets the job done.

Then it dawned on me, I have been looking for suitable instrumentals for my 'Helping Hand' series (follow it on UTube or my sister blog 'Apocryphic Videos') and I can actually make a specific beat I can use.

The inspiration behind 'Jungle Jim' is a combo video by KYSG using the Jungle stage from Tekken 4. Using this as my basis, I am going to do Yoshi's Poison Breaths tutorial on the 'Mystic Forest' stage (the Jungle stage successor) in T6 with my new beat that I created. It'll be a minute before I upload this specific video but here is an advance preview of the actually beat itself that I came up with.

I am really excited for this and I might use Newton's New Tones for other instrumentals if this works out.

BONUS: Damn Kid Kennedy coming online during the middle of my video and lol you can hear my momma hollering right at the end of it.

The name 'Jungle Jim' actually comes from a all region supermarket near Arcade Legends. Cincinnati locals know about it.

pP

Paying it Forward

2010-05-13T04:16:00.003-05:00

Well this post is actually a massive plug for my brand new video series which I am dual broadcasting on YouTube and my video blog.

I have recently learnt how to perform alot of the 'harder' moves in Tekken and now I have decided to pay it forward and share with the general populace.

A couple of these moves already had tute's dedicated to it but this is the first dedicated multi-character series on YouTube and also alot of the moves I am showing don't even have one video dedicated to them (*ahem* Armor King).

'Helping Hand' is going to be an on-going series too and if the auidence chimes in and asks for tute's which I haven't planned on doing or tute's for certain moves earlier, I might see what I can do.

All in all, I hope people enjoy and appreciate what I am aiming to do.

pP

Resurrection

2010-05-06T00:14:00.005-05:00

So it's a new month and I actually had a good idea what songs I was going to use for this month for once. I actually should have used these last month when I had my dry spell but for some strange reason I didn't think about it till April's player was uploaded. Anyhow, the central theme of this month is one of my favorite artists.

Kenna... mysterious, musical and down right awesome.

Turn: A song Kenna wrote for his 'Summit on the Summit' project (www.summitonthesummit.com). This songs shows Kenna's ability to make haunting melodies and at the same time be involved with something important. The water crisis is real and it's nice that Kenna is giving back.

Resurrection: Produced by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park fame and featuring Lupe Fiasco, again Kenna wears his heart on his sleeve and dedicates this song to the Haiti effort. A truly inspiration song and one of my favorite songs of this new year hands down.

Dumb it Down: Not a >II< song but Lupe has collaborated with Kenna on 'Resurrection' and other songs, he was also a big participant in the 'Summit on the Summit'. This ties all three songs together. Dumb it Down is one of my fave Lupe songs because of his clever word play.

Well enjoy!

pP

The Difference

2010-05-03T18:42:00.003-05:00

So it's May already... wow. I'll be uploading some new music tomorrow, actually found a couple songs I want to share and rave about.

This blog however is dedicated to the difference between my two main blogs.

This blog (aka apocryphicvisions.blogspot.com) is my everything and the kitchen sink blog. I will blog about everything and anything here. I might review a game I played or a flick I recently saw (I definately am going to review Iron Man 2). I'll post about music or stuff that annoys me on this blog too.

My other blog (aka apocryphicvideos.blogspot.com) is my purely gaming blog. It's dedicate to my Raged Death Combo series, sneak peeks at other projects and soon a place for my 'Helping Hand' tutorial series.

One or the other, both them further the brand of Apocryphic Visions, my company.

Well till next time.

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Explanations

2010-04-22T03:20:00.002-05:00

Eagle eyed and regular readers would note that I change my 'Rants' and 'Raves' side column all the time.

For the first time through I will actually explain what has inspired these 'Rants' and 'Raves'.

Rant- Blogger Upload Limits: self explanatory this one. I am annoyed I can't upload my last couple Raged Death Combos to my Apocryphic Videos blog. It's a sucky development for sure.

Rave- Last Season of Lost... so good!: Another easy one, the last season of Lost on ABC is really captivating and really is a reward for watching the show for as long as the fans have. From twists galore to shocking deaths and returns, this season has it all. It's going to be a real dark day when I realize I have no new Lost to look forward too.

Rant- No Promotion Chance for Zaffy: This one is really driving me nutty. I have been the same rank with Zaffy for a minute and for some strange reason Xbox Live is refusing to match me up with people remotely close to my rank. I mean 1st Dan and Mentors? 9th Kyuu's? Really?!? I want my top 10 spot damnit.

Rave- Ninja Gaiden II: Easily one of the blood filled games I have played EVER and it's soo good. The demo is action packed and filled with tons of stuff to do and people to slice. LOVE the new 'obliteration' technique and new Ninpo (Wind Blades... sick!). Kinda sad it didn't end with a boss encounter but eh, more to look forward to when I actually buy the game.

Rant- New season of Heroes, not announced yet: It's crazy, Lost is ending and my other favorite genre show hasn't had a official announcement if it's coming back. I know Heroes is getting flack from everyone and there dog but the show has it's die hard fans (me and my family are in that category) and it's wrong how they are holding out. Renew the show already! I mean, Sylar being a good guy, the world knowing about super powered people? It can't end like that?

Rave- This Sunday is my second anniversary and I am really looking forward to spending time with my lovely wife. Hopefully we can get away.

Well that's that.

pP

Magnetic Shockwave

2010-04-17T00:56:00.004-05:00

So as promised, I am back and regular visitors would noticed April's music player is FINALLY up. Yeah it took me a minute to find some good music I wanted to share and nothing out there really has rocked my socks lately. I mean after 'Echo' by Leona Lewis and 'The Fame Monster' by Lady Gaga, I haven't heard or seen anything that has really impressed me. So I went old skool.

I dug into my collection and decided to go with two artists I really like:

First off is Gorillaz

The wackiest cartoon band is back with 'Plastic Beach' but I am still rocking their old tunes. One of my favorites is 'Rockit' with it's uber disturbing video. The demon in the video is also the same demon in the image and one of the reasons why I picked it. I mean how can you not love 'Rockit' with it's 'reject false icons' message and 'blah blah blah' hook (not the Ke$ha song).

Next is Foxy Brown

The incredible lame-ness of newest female rap star Nicki Minaj reminds me of why I miss Foxy Brown and how I wish she was making more music. I know she is still around but I was really feeling her during her 'Broken Silence' days and I was kinda salty her follow up album 'Ill Na Na 2: The Fever" was shelved. Thankfully the internet scores and I was able to find leaked tracks from it including the song 'Magnetic'. I love the old skool Neptune sound and this is a prime example. Add Foxy spitting some hot stuff like "you know your the best when rap dudes got at you". Damn girl is something else.

So 2... not 3 songs. I am feeling different.

pP

P.S. LOL random spammers... I guess spamming in a foreign language means you don't understand me when I say I moderate my comments now. Well keep trying, I'll keep rejecting them.

House keeping

2010-04-15T00:10:00.002-05:00

So regular vistors to my blog would notice some little changes. The most obvious is the new color scheme. I decided to go with a 'cool' color scheme, especially after the 'Man on Fire' inspired one I had.

This blog isn't as busy as it used to be mainly because I am focusing alot of my blogging into my Apocryphic Videos blog, especially now I actually have stuff to showcase. I will try to come back and drop some words now and again through.

There will be some more minor changes and yep some new music will be added.

Keep it locked, Rants & Raves isn't going nowhere.

pP

Forever Young

2010-04-13T15:50:00.003-05:00

Sorry it took me a minute to come back to my 'main' blog but my other blog (shameless plug www.apocryphicvideos.blogspot.com) has really be taking up most of my time.

One of the sure things 'Rants & Raves' would blog about was the three songs I was feeling for the new month. I was liking them so much that I would want to share them with y'all. However as of late, I haven't really heard anything that blows me away and stuff that I should like, like Ke$ha feat 3OH3!'s 'Blah Blah' isn't really rocking my socks.

The only real song I would want to share would be 'Young Forever' by Jay Z feat Mr. Hudson and that's a shame because I usually have a couple good songs to chat about.

Ah well, maybe the week will change and I'll find some new music (or old music) I would like to share.

Until then...

pP

Welcome Back

2010-03-30T16:26:00.003-05:00

Yep, I decided to take a month off from blogging but now I am back.

As you can hear, the music hasn't been updated and that's mainly because I wasn't really feeling any songs for the last month. I now have a couple ideas what I want to use but I will be saving them for the April mix.

Also check out my other blog www.apocryphicvideos.blogspot.com for the first of my Tekken 6 Rage Death Combo Videos.

pP

P.S. No more random comments please. Consider this blog moderated.

Taking her to the next level: Zafina (part 1)

2010-02-09T13:43:00.005-06:00

It's been awhile since I purely blogged. This a pure gamer blog so be forewarned I will be using Tekken terminology and gaming terminology like meaty, hit confirming and what not.

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging is because I have been so caught up playing T6 on my XBox 360 and working on the combos videos which are all coming together.

One thing I have noticed whilst working on my Zafina combo video is how she is designed. My personal understanding of Zaffy (as me and my friends affectionately call her)is she is best played as a counter hit hunting/ poke intensive character.

She has alot of moves that support this theory. She has b+1+2 which is a long distance low poke. Db+2 is a good meaty mid poke that gives her slight advantage as well. She can also use df+3 and then 4 which acts as a natural combo, good for punishing long distance whiffs and un-safe moves. However the player needs to hit confirm the first hit before going for either follow up because both of her follow ups can be option selected out of (i.e you can duck the high and block the low if you block the first hit).

Another good move that works wonders on people who don't know the match-up is 2,1,3. A high, mid and the low string that grounds opponents and leaves Zaf in Mantis (one of her stances). Once people get familiar with it, 2,1 by itself is a good poke string and if the 1 hits on counter hit which usually happens people try to interupt the slow low, she gets a juggle.

This leads us to one of Zaffy's more important tatics, counter hit hunting. 3 of Zafina's better moves require counter hits to make the 2nd hit guranteed. B+4,4 is one of them. B+4,4 is launch punishable on block, it however does alot of damage (51 on CH) and can also wall splat if done up close to a wall for a very damaging wall combo. The beauty of b+4 is on counter hit you get a Zaffy specific hit spark (purple) which is a indicator to end the move or not finish it at all.
A move very similar to this is Tarantula 4,3. It is punishable on block but the 4 has a hit spark if you hit it on CH and you can then finish the move to get a proper combo.
The final move is d+4,3. D+4,3 is safe, however it is low,high so anyone aware of the move should be ducking the last hit. On counter hit through, the move become natural. You do not get a hit spark if the move hits on counter through, you get a change in animation (opp is hopping and holding there knee/shin) so you need to be extra alert to spot and finish this one. The reward is well worth it through.
Db+4,2 is similar to d+4,3 in that you need to counter hit confirm before ending the move but db+4 is unsafe, the db+4,2 is launch punishable AND you get no special animation if it hits on counter, so use it at your own peril.

This first part address, Zaf's pokes and counter hit hunting both essential parts of her game. The next part will address okizemi and high damage juggles. I will also be updating this post with pictures.

pP

Starstrukk

2010-02-05T16:38:00.002-06:00

It's a brand new month, the shortest month but a new month never less. So without anymore fanfare, I bring you the new music for this month. I actually had all these songs in mind before the start of the month which is pretty rare for me. I knew however that these will be my songs for February for sure.

Steaming by Sarah McLachlan- I love Sarah, she was actually part of January mix as well, I recently got her Greatest Hits cd and whilst I listened to it, I came to realize how much I love this song. Steaming from her 2nd lp 'Solace' is probably my favorite song from that album. It's a combination of the deep lyrics and awesome dual chorus which ALWAYS get me.

Tik Tok by Kesha- A relatively new artist, on first listen I was perplexed by this song but just like another song (you might know it, it's called 'Just Dance') this song grew on me and now I find myself singing it to myself all the time. This song is definitely coming to a combo video/ AVision very soon. I mean "fight till we see the sunlight" on a stage in T6 called 'Temple Grounds' where background actually changes from night to day, tell me that isn't cool!

Starstrukk by 3OH!3 feat Katy Perry- 3OH!3 is back with their crazy sense of humor and sick beats. These guys have been on my music hit list before and with Starstrukk they not only make a reappearance but also get a blog named after them. Also crazy is I am not a big fan of Katy Perry but she fits really well on this song.

Well, enjoy!

pP

Death never looked so pretty.

2010-01-25T19:35:00.004-06:00

My Brand New Zafina combo video "Another Way 2 Die" is out and you can view it on YT or watch via the embedding on my Apocryphic Videos blog ======>>>>

I put alot of work into this one and I am very proud of it. I want to do a longer director' cut but I do feel this is good enough to be published as is.

Hope everyone checks it out and lets me know what they think.

pP

It's because I am Australian

2010-01-23T08:23:00.003-06:00

Last year, me and my dude, Mike sat down with Actionhank from Dayton to discuss one of my favorite topics.

Here is the pod-cast.

http://www.powerupfighters.com/2010/01/podcast-episode-23-sluch-and-dr4go/

Oh and the title is because of the accent, if you don't know me, it might throw you off for a minute... or forever.

LOL

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Alive!

2010-01-13T02:59:00.004-06:00

Well y'all it is not only a new month but a new year. So to celebrate here is our new music player!

Now I am not afraid to eat humble pie, last time I checked Fileden was being mighty screwy and not being helpful at all. I thought it was still like that but thankfully it isn't and I can finally upload my music to the site again yahh!

I actually wrote an entry (which I have deleted lol don't want to slander anybody unless they deserve it) that we were not going to get no new music but it turns out I was wrong. So without anymore fanfare, here is this months three.

Monster: Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga has divided a lot of people but for people who actually like her (yes they do exist lol) she is a nice singer and a great performer. The title song from her new album 'The Fame Monster' is an awesome piece of pop. It's trademark Lady Gaga and like always she goes the extra mile, instead of he took my heart, she says "he ate my heart" lol Gaga... you are so... umm... gaga?!

Alive: Leona Lewis. Another of our most featured in my music lists is Leona. Anyone whom follows this blog knows I love me some of Ms. Lewis and this song from her new album 'Echo' is probably one of my favorite songs in recent memory. The lyrics are perfect and I swear it should be used for 'Lost' promo. Perfect for it I tell you.

Building a Mystery: Sarah McLachlan. I am actually surprised I have not used Sarah before, she is one of my all time favorite artists and this is one of my all time favorite songs. This song made me a Sarah fan... truth. Also how awesome is it when she says "you are a beautiful, a beautiful fucked up man"? It was so unexpected yet so fitting.

Well that's our songs for this month.

Enjoy!

pP

P.S. I finally got my first comment on my blog in awhile and LOL it was not just spam but it was spam in a different language! Cracks me up.

Awesome and not so Awesome

2009-12-30T16:43:00.002-06:00

LOL so that title is not quite rants and raves so I think I might stick with R & R. The inspiration for this title is mainly because of two things. My Xbox 360 and Fileden screwing with me. It's a non brainer which one is awesome and which is not so awesome eh?

My Xbox 360 is everything I ever wanted in a game system. It plays my current favorite game (Tekken 6), it is backwards compatiable so I can play my old favorites like Ninja Gaiden Black and Brute Force. I can go online with it thanks to my brother in law Larry and play Tekken online (not so awesome tho) and download games and demos (awesome). It is packed with cool demos and games and a massive hard-drive. On top of that, I can save music to my hard-drive and actually listen to that instead of the game music which is too pimp. I am so happy I finally caught with this generation of gamers and it's all thanks to my awesome American family. I LOVE y'all.

The not so awesome is Fileden. Much like how MyFlashFetish was cool for a minute and then started realitating (a.k.a acting stupid and not making sense) it looks like Fileden the storage place for my mp3's which work in conjunction with my mp3 music player on this very site is heading the same route. Why do people need to mess with a good thing for? Because of this major realitation I now can not make my year end player I was planning. Thanks... Merry Christmas indeed.

Well this will probably be my last blog for this year, this, my first real year of blogging and it was cool. I will keep it up in the new year and keep y'all posted and interested in my rants and raves.

pP

p.S Can't believe we are coming to an end of another decade, wow.

I like Lists

2009-12-23T18:22:00.003-06:00

It is ironic that my two blog posts for this year are both related to my music player but hey, that's the way the wind blows I guess.

I actually created this list a couple weeks ago but only now I have got around to putting it down. It is not that I am super busy, it is just I don't blog as much as I used to. Hopefully I will find more reasons to blog in 2010.

Anyhow, back to the title. I like making lists. It goes all the way back to my childhood. I am not the most organized person so it puzzles me that I like making lists but that is something I find myself doing a lot. Now immediately after I completed my song list for this month. I thought about the one constant thing in my blog. The one constant was, every month, no matter the month, I would do a blog dedicated to explaining why I choose certain songs for my music player. I then decided to do my top 5 songs from these 36 different songs I have picked over the course of 2009.

Without further ado and in no specific order.

My Top 5 blog songs!

*Run by Leona Lewis. Big fan of Leona, massive fan of this song even through it never came out as a single in US and not I am not even a fan of the original. Leona just put her own spin on it and in my opinion, killed it. This song is also forever associated to me with my short story 'Run' as well, even through they explore different themes.

*After the Hurricane by Jazmine Sullivan. Another new favorite female artist of mine. I love the raw imagery in this song. Once again, not a single through it was used in a tv show I watched but I was a big fan before it was.

*Viva La Vida by Coldplay. I always liked Coldplay but I never consider myself a big fan. This song made me a fan and now I am actually enjoying their music a lot more. The song and video go hand in hand so well.

*Don't Trust Me by 3OH3!. Very random among these other songs but my music player was never predictable. I actually enjoy this strange song and lol ain't afraid to admit it. Truly a guilty pleasure.

*I Like it Rough by Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga had a great year in music, becoming the new 'It' girl and everything. 'The Fame' was one of the few albums I listened to this year that I enjoyed from beginning to finish. This song is hands down one of my favorites off an album of favorites.

Well that's the list. I think I might celebrate this list by turning it into my player on my other blog (apocryphicvideos.blogspot.com).

Have a Merry Christmas all

pP

My Sweetest Downfall

2009-12-11T10:35:00.003-06:00

It took a minute but the soundtrack for December is now up. It took me a minute to find some songs I really wanted to share with everyone but I am happy with the three I picked.

I am actually going to do them in the order which I picked the songs. Just something different this month.

The first song I knew for sure I would want on my player was 'Did It Again' by Shakira. It really is a non-brainer. I mean, I like Shakira and the song is produced by Pharrell of the Neptunes. That to me is like a guaranteed shoe-in. One of the things I really dig about the song is the very well choreographed video. The scene of Shakira play fighting with her partner (a known b-boy) works well and as we all know Shakira is my first choice to play Zafina and this video (and others) proves she can do all those crazy moves Zafina does so well.

'Flowers' by Crystal Kay was my second choice. I always loved this song by her and I feel even through I can't understand what she is saying I can feel the emotion in this song. Ironically, my wife recently got Crystal Kay's Greatest Hits on a 2 disc set but this song wasn't on it but to me it is one of her best songs.

The final choice is 'Samson' by Regina Spektor. I actually knew of this song for a pretty long time, dating back to when I lived in Australia (which feels like a lifetime ago). However I recently got Regina's cd from Lane (note to self, write that blog about Lane before end of year) and re-discovered how much I like this song. It's funny I now actually have long hair and of course Samson is in reference to the Bible story about Samson and his hair, I however liked this song when I didn't have long hair through, lol. Oh and yes, the title of this blog is inspired by 'Samson' as well.

Well that's it.

Enjoy!

pP

Rave: Ninja Assassin

2009-11-28T17:46:00.005-06:00

In the biggest no-brainer of all time, this rave will be about Ninja Assassin.

Regular readers of my blog know I have been following Ninja Assassin since the movie was first announced. Me and my lovely wife have been following the movie's progress very avidly and could not wait to see the trailer.

Then the trailer was released and it looked like all our dreams had come true. Our boy, Rain was coming to America in a fantastic way. As firm supporters of Rain, his music, his shows, we were ready for it.

We kept ourselves pump on the way to the show (ironically the place is called 'Rave') by listening to our specially made Rain cd. We sat down with our confectionaries and then the show began.

The film blew away all my expectations and delivered hands down one of my most bloodiest, violent movies I have ever watched. The blood spurted, sprayed and flew, the plot was easy to follow, the characters had motivation and were believable. In the end, me and my wife were extremely satisifed.

Rain got his acting on, his English was surprisingly fluent and he brought the fury in the action scenes. Boy had some serious moves and he rocked our world.

On top of Rain, Sho Kosugi the father of all Ninja movies also delivered a virturoso come-back performance and it really pleased me that the directors/producers/writers gave him such a good showing. It was the equilvent of what Tarintino did for David Carridine in Kill Bill. A true movie legend was shown the respect he deserved in a genre he helped popularized. Naomi Harris also played a perfect foil for Rain, there exchanges were filled with humor, respect and some affection.

Props must also be given to the director/ cinematographer, the movie had many iconic moments that will stick with you after the credits rolled.

All in all, Transformers: Revenge of Fallen must move aside as my favorite movie of this year. This Year belongs to the Ninja.

pP

Sweet SINdel

2009-11-23T23:53:00.002-06:00

I always had a thing for Sindel from Mortal Kombat. Dating all the way back to Mortal Kombat 3 when she was first introduced, I thought she had a mysterious, dangerous yet sexy appeal to her. Her outfit showed just enough and I kinda like the white hair with a black streak.

It was later on I realized she had awesome combos and I could win with her as well so that was pretty sweet too.

So when I was told that Sindel was casted in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation movie (and this was after the first MK movie which is and still is, a pretty good flick) I was looking forward to seeing who they casted.

The end result was Musetta Vander. She was a relative unknown when the flick came out and she, too me, made a horrendous movie slightly bearable. She was hot, she was crazy, she was Sindel to a tee.

The movie put Musetta on the map but not in a great way. Thankfully she later on followed it up with a good guest spot in Stargate: SGI (where she was Teal's long lost love) and Star Trek: Voyager (where she played Harry Kim's love interest). The casting directors like giving her roles where she was an inter-racial relationship and that appealed to me as well.

She just worked on a film called 'Transylmania' (which is where the above image is from)
where she plays a not so nice mistress of the dark. Yep, I like this ladies body of work, literally.

I was always a fan of Sindel and I will admit I definitely a fan of Musetta Vander too.

pP

Expectations is a Bish

2009-11-18T05:33:00.002-06:00

LOL so I have this thing I need to tell you, my audience about. First off, it is kinda funny, I feel like I have a crowd and my blog is being read by someone other then me or my friends. I know this ain't the case but I still feel like I need to write like it is being read by multiple people.

Anyway onwards. Everyday I go to my blog, just for the Heck of it. I, sometimes tho feel the expectation to write something. Like I look at the date of my last blog entry and I say to myself 'Damn Phil, you've been quiet lately'. However most of the times I really can't come up with something I really REALLY want to write about. Sure I update my 'Rants' and 'Raves' on the side bar (almost religiously now) but other then that I really don't feel like typing a full on blog.

That is why expectations is a bish. I feel like I should write something, anything. I do know tho that it's not like keeping this blog updated would make me any money through (I wish) or there is a crowd of people following my every word but still. I feel the need to write something.

Hence this entry.

pP

P.S. Yes this is a very ironic blog entry.

November has Come or I don't want to get sued.

2009-11-05T10:42:00.004-06:00

So it is a new month so that of course means new music.

In this case, it actually is new music. I rarely go with the norm and always try to go outside of the box when it comes to music players but this month I am actually feeling some commercial 'popular' songs.

First off the bat is 'Forever'. Now I am going to go on the record, I do not get this whole 'Drake is the leader of the new school rap movement'. I think dude is aight but he hasn't blown my mind like say Lupe Fiasco. I can not hate on this song through. Drake delivers a good verse, Kanye is solid and has tons of quotables (despite what the haters say) and Wanye's verse is meh to me but that's probably because I am so sick and tired of him overstaturating the market. However the clear winner of this battle royale is Em. Em comes in and kills it, resurects it and kills it all over again. Yeah his verse was that sick. Just listen to it.

2nd is 'Doesn't Mean Anything' by Alicia Keys. To my surprise I have never featured Alicia in my music players even through she has consistantly been one of my favorite artists. This song is her latest and after a couple listens I really dig it. In a funny 'everything is connected' moment, the video for this song (specifically the last couple minutes) really doesn't do much for the song which of course is strange because I mentioned in previous blogs how much videos help me enjoy a song (Forever being a recent example, I really didn't sit up and notice the song till the video, nice work Hype Williams).

However I can't go all new skool so I had to put in one of my favorite songs of all time. 'Fastlove' by George Michael. I grew to love George due to my older brothers. Not a Christmas goes by without my oldest brother Rob playing 'Last Christmas' and my other brother Michael swears by 'Father Figure' and 'Jesus to a Child' as the best songs of all time. For me, Fastlove has always been one of my favorite songs and one of the reasons why I love it is because of the multi-chorus at the end.
Now funny enough, only recently I realized the bit I love with the female chorus is actually a sample of a song called 'Forget Me Nots' by Patrice Rushen. It is the same song Will Smith sampled to make 'Men in Black'. I didn't realize this however till I came to the States and heard 'Forget Me Nots' on my local r'n'b station Mojo and then heard 'Fastlove' again after so long.

So that's my choice for this month. I actually wanted to celebrate Rain's impending US takeover (Ninja Assassin, Thanksgiving!!) with a Rain song but I have used so many Rain songs so I decided to give it a slight break.

Oh and the title, hah. The first part of the title is inspired by Gorillaz's song of the same name. The other part of not being sued is actually a reference to me wanting to use a Prince song (probably 'When Doves Cry') but then I realized Prince is EXTRA sensitive about his music online so lol better safe then sorry. I will give him his props tho. Prince... 'When Doves Cry' is the Shit man! Go on with your crazy self.

pP

Shameless Plug Time!

2009-10-27T06:51:00.006-05:00

Just letting followers of my blog that I have finished my Zafina combo video and it is available in two different locations.

The YouTube version is the modified version, with non-licensed music (which still ended up being music claimed LOL). I like this version and I stand by it.

YouTube Version

The Blogger version through is the 'director's cut' with the music I always wanted to use for it. Sure it is in two halves but it is still the definative version of my vision.

Blogger Version

More to come... I even have a cool name for planned for Vol. 2 'Another Way to Die'.

pP

Kismet

2009-10-20T13:08:00.007-05:00

I am currently enjoying a new show on CBS called 'Three Rivers'. It is a medicial drama but as a twist it mainly about organ donation, not nurses/ doctors and surgeries.

One of the reasons why I am enjoying said show is because of Daniel Henney. Regular readers of my blog know that Daniel was casted by me as the lead actor in my 'Homecoming' film so I was already a fan of dude. He is doing a great job on the show through it seems he is a background player right now, whilst the two other main leads are getting the focus. Hopefully this changes as the show continues and we see more of him instead of ladies man/ food obsessed smart surgeon we already have.

In the first episode, Three Rivers actually had Marina Sirtis as a guest-star. This was a pleasent surprise because I am a fan of Marina but also because she was also casted by me in my 'Homecoming' film as Jackie, the mother of Patricia (the lead female character) and good friend of Jacque (Daniel's character). Unfortunately they did not have any scenes together but I did thought that was cool.

In last nights episode, it happened again. This time Daniel was interacting with a young Indian/ Arabian girl played by Summer Bishil. Summer has previously starred in a critically acclaimed movie called 'Towelhead' but she is still a new-comer to the game.

The minute I saw her, I thought about Patricia and how she would play the role of younger Patricia perfectly and to see her on screen with the older Jacque was blowing me away. It was like fate, kismet.

Now all I need is a younger Jacque... which will probably be casted on Three Rivers in the next couple weeks or so, knowing their track record.

Sad news is that Three Rivers isn't doing so well ratings wise. I do hope I get at least one season of this drama. I really like it.

Also link to the original casting blog:
http://apocryphicvisions.blogspot.com/2009/02/hauntings-casting-homecoming.html

pP

Rave: Strictly Business

2009-10-15T15:28:00.002-05:00

It almost been a week since the first money/ major Tekken Bloodline Rebellion tournament in Cincy. In hindsight, I have to put in my 2 cents on how it went down.

First, one can't ask for a better venue. We had good space, machine was on free play. Game Works has been treating us extremely well thanks to Mike and the workers there so I can't write a rave without giving them their just dues.

Second, organization. Once again Mike delivered here. We had more then enough drinks for everyone (paid from Mike's own pocket so kudos there too). The tournament was run extremely well. Sure we had only 11 people but it was still a smoothly run tournament. No confusion with whom was next. We had a couple late-comers but in the end, the tournament went off without a hitch. We also had pizza for days as well. The $10 venue fee was more then adequate for everything we recieved.

The actual tournament. Now one thing I really liked about this tournament was it brought out all the serious players. We had 11 people but everyone was good and brought their A game. People who some thought would be a push-over brought a new level of gaming. Damon (CoCoIchi) and TRKT (The Real KT) both went above and beyond in bringing some good games.

On top of that, our established players brought the fire too. Skeez beat Derrick in the losers. Derrick beat me in the winners. LOC was wrecking shop as well. I even played some of the best Tekken I have played in awhile. The magnus opus was the inclusion of HaiGuy from MI. We had a bonafide talent come through and give us some seriously solid matches in casuals and the tournament. It was nice to play against a player of this calibur and I felt I was playing better by just hanging out with him.

In the end HaiGuy won pretty comfortably over me (forgive me Nati) but we all had fun. It was a great tournament and in the end it only makes me look forward to more.

With T6 immenient release on console. I feel Cincy/N. Ky/Dayton as are a gaming community are going to shine at lot more this time around. We all have what it takes to get the same level HaiGuy is. Now it's up to us to realize our potential and run with it.

pP

Seeing Sounds

2009-10-06T13:31:00.003-05:00

Recently I learnt about a rare phenomenon called Synesthesia where a person can mix certain senses, one of these can be 'seeing sounds'.

One of my favorite band/ producers N.E.R.D recently explored this by naming their third album 'Seeing Sounds' (which is how I learnt about it and the origin of this blog entry) so it is ironic that one of the shows that I watch and enjoy, Heroes also explored this phenomenon as well. One of the new characters in the show can actually see sounds. Everything is connected indeed.

Well for me, it is nowhere near as crazy (thankfully). I choose this title mainly because the music I picked this month for my blog are forever linked with images and when I hear these songs, I see associated images.

For example, Original Sin by Taylor Dayne. I am a massive fan of Taylor. The girl can sing and after I watched the movie 'The Shadow' starring Alec Baldwin (and enjoyed it) I was treated to this epic ballad in the ending credits. It stuck with me forever and even a couple years later I was still interested in the song. Thanks to YT I was able to find it and saw the accompanying music video for the first time. The music video reminded me of many scenes from the movie and reminded me again why I liked the movie. It was way ahead of it's time, a superhero flick with a dark hero who sticks to the shadows *cough* Batman Begins. Oh and Pennelope Ann Miller was one of my favorite actress back in those days. Well now I listen to this song I can't get images of the video or the film out of my mind. They are forever married together and does the job of a good music video.

It is ironic then that the other two songs are not memorable because of their music videos. No, these songs are forever etched in my mind because of a show called 'So You Think You Can Dance'. This show (Judgesss as me and my wife like to call it thanks to the way UK host Cat Deeley says judges) has been helped me find a lot of music to enjoy over the last 3 seasons I have watched the show. Because of the show I found a love for Adele's Hometown Glory but at the same time I also find appreciation for other songs I already know, like Closer by Ne-Yo, Alone by Heart and so many more. It is quite a show and because of these memorable routines, the songs become associated with the images, the dances.

Hence the inclusion of 'If It Kills Me'. This song was used during a routine in last season and featured the winner of the show Jannine. In a passionate and emotional performance all done to the beat of the song, I grew to enjoy the song. It was later this same year when another performer danced to the same song, that me and my wife realized we really liked this song and it has now become one of our favorite current songs. Now also ironic is the fact that the performer Jason Mraz has never been on my radar as a artist I liked. He had a couple cute songs but nothing really shouted at me until this song and now I think I might listen to a couple of his other tracks and see if has any other gems like 'If It Kills Me'.

Another song we discovered due to a routine on 'Judgesss' was 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles. Again Sara really wasn't on my radar. I knew of her but I was not really a fan. This song changed that through and it was all thanks to another routine. This one was by Kapuno and Kayla. Now me and wife both admitted we weren't big fans of the performer Kayla but she did perform her booty off for this performance and it has stuck with us as one of our favorite performances from the whole season. So this song and routine not only made us ignore the fact that Kayla was a brillant but boring performer but also made me enjoy an artist I previous ignored. Also ironic is unlike 'Original Sin' I don't associated Gravity with it's music video (which actually exists) but more with this routine.

Such is the power of 'Seeing Sounds' and 'Judgesss'.

pP

Why Would You?

2009-09-22T15:07:00.002-05:00

I have a serious question for y'all.

Lets say you hear about this awesome resturant. Now lets say this resturant has had stellar reviews from other people so of course you want to see what all the fuss is about.

You look forward to going to this resturant, you enter and you pay good money. Then once you arrive you notice things are off. Waiters ain't helping you or listening to what you have to say, the food is sub par and it arrives extremely late and they still have the nerve to charge you an arm and a leg.

Now the serious question is, no matter the good reviews this place was given, judging from your own personal experience, would you want to go back? I hope you said no because if not I worry about you.

So let me flip this metaphor on it's head. Let's change the resturant to a tournament. A much hyped tournament called 'Seasons Beatings'. Before 'SB' I waited impatiently for it, I was told it was going to be the biggest tournament of it's kind in my local area of the Nati. I was looking forward to it, everyone I spoke to gave it good reviews. Sure it was expensive to attend but in the end I knew it would be worth it. So I arrived eager and ready to rock.

We (me and my fellow gamers) arrived on time and were ready to roll, however the venue was not. We were shut out and told we couldn't enter let alone register for another 1/2 hours. I thought that was odd but I went with it.

Once inside, the tournament began and straight off the bat, I realized that the people running the Tekken tournament were not particularly concerned with helping people. Numerous people were 'eliminated' with very short warnings. I understand moving a tournament along BUT paying $20 entry fee and an additional $10 for the game and then being eliminated without so much as a consideration? I did not think that was right at all. The tournament continued and it continued to get more and more dis-organized. It felt like nothing was moving along and it took forever for matches to be run.

I was doing well in this tournament but when I got into the losers I had a match up with one of the big draws of the tournament. Not naming any names but he won the previous years tournament. Now, here comes the bitch assness (I was going to say bish hash but it's so wrong it doesn't deserved to be watered down). All the unknowns and people who weren't 'big draws' will being eliminated without any real notice. However when it came to me and this person, I was asked to wait.

So wait I did. I waited patiently for my match and after awhile I got tired of waiting. So I asked for my match again, again I was told to wait. I waited some more. This was annoying me to know end but this player was getting presidential treatment due to his 'status'. I knew for sure that if this was the other way around and 'Drago' could not have been found, that it would have surely been a different story. The organizers even had the nerve to say if I wanted to play my match, that I needed to find my 'opponent'. Wait? Really? But yes, they asked me to find him and I actually did.
We finally played and in a moment that amuses me to know end, I beat him. I beat the big draw that I had to wait around for and find myself. It gets better of course. The player then proceed to be-little my playing skill. Very classy.

I continued on in the tournament and lost but the damage was already done. I was already over 'Seasons Beatings' and even through I paid for two days attendence, I tried to find the fastest route to get home.

Now this may sound like bitching and it sure is but my incident was not an isolated one. Talk to my friends who play Soul Calibur and asked how they were treated. Talk to my friend who was clearly winning a match and then he accidentally paused the game and his competitor (who happened to be an organizer) made him forfeit the match so he could win on a technically. Instead of bad experiences being the exception, it was the norm.

The whole tournament was clearly not organized for a community of gamers. It was more a big ego stroking contest that got out of control.

I have been to major tournaments before. I particpated in OzHadou Nationals twice. OzHadou is like the Australian equilvent of Evolution. Both times I left the tournament extremely happy and content I came. I can't say the same for 'SB'.

So now I ask you. You went to the resturant, you tried their food. In the end you had a horrible experience. Why would you go back? Why wouldn't you want to warn others about it?

pP

Better By Being Beaten

2009-09-19T20:54:00.002-05:00

As a semi professional gamer, I take my video gaming seriously. That is why I like a good challenge and sometimes I realize I can't win them all but I can get better by trying and giving it a go.

When I was first getting into gaming I used to play in this tiny arcade in Cabramatta called TimeGone. In between TimeGone and visits to Liverpool to play at their local arcades, I feel like I was a local legend. People knew about me and people knew I was good at the game I was playing. At that time it was King of Fighters '96 (ahh the good ol' days!). I felt like I really was good at the game I played until one day I was in Sydney for some business. I went up to the KOF '96 machine, put in my monies and expected to own up. To my utter surprise I was one that was owned and owned badly. I was surprised. I thought I was good at the game but it wasn't the case. People in the city, used characters I never seen before or they used characters I was used to in ways it made them foreign to me. For sure it was a reality check and it made me go back to where I lived and played harder and better.

A couple years later, the same thing happened. Again at Cabramatta/ Liverpool I was the proverbial big fish in the pond in Tekken Tag. Then one day I decided to go to the city and play Tekken Tag with the Sydney players and again. Owned, not only was I owned badly, some people even beat me with my own characters which was a bitter pill to swallow. Again I left my city trip dis-satisfied with my performance and puzzled. Where was I going wrong? It then occured to me that it was because I was restricting myself to the local talent in my area that I was not getting any better by beating them to a pulp. If anything I was picking up bad habits that made me a worse player. With this epiphany I started to travel more and expand my horizons. I eventually got better but by the time I became really good, Tekken 5 came out and everyone was playing the latest game.

With Tekken 5 I really had an advantage I never had before. By now I was working in Sydney full time so everyday I was able to play everyone at their peak. Sydney is where all the good players played out so for awhile it was a steep learning curve but I eventually got better and wiser. It was the gaming equivalent of living in New York or LA. The best played the best and like how steel sharpens steel, everyone gets better. One of the things I also did was travel outside of Sydney and find other local gamers, none of them were as good as the talent in Sydney but it was still a good experience to play different styles. In the end I got better by being beaten not by staying in my own bubble and focusing on conquering my own little part of the kingdom.

pP

P.S I don't think I will share with you the massacre that occured the one time I actually went back to Liverpool/ Cabramatta to play Tekken 5 with my 'old friends'. It was not pretty.

Taylor Swift/ Kanye West 'Controversy'

2009-09-14T15:10:00.003-05:00

So in the wake of what happened at the MTV VMA Awards last night, I have decided to put in my 2 cents.

In case you did not hear, Taylor Swift won a VMA for Best Female Video. As she was accepting her award graciously, Kanye West rushed the stage and decided to say that Taylor did not deserve to win, rather Beyonce did and that she had the one of the best videos of all time. Now 'Ye I don't know if that was the best video of 'all time' (obviously one of MJ's videos has that honor in my opinion). Heck I don't even like Beyonce's video but that was his opinion. Now dude was a little drunk it seems and he did what Kanye does best. Attract controversy. But from my point of view, it seems like people are making a mountain out of an ant hill. Please notice in my title I put controversy in inverted commas because I feel like people are taking this too far.

Now let's get some facts straight. I do not mind Taylor Swift, I however do not worship the ground she walks on. She is a nice girl, makes nice radio friendly music.

I like Kanye. I like the music he makes, even if sometimes speaks out of turn. He is touched that is for sure but he is human.

I like Beyonce. Her most recent album however was horrible and I don't think I will listen to it unless I have a need to punish my ear drums.

So with this in mind, Kanye was in the wrong for coming on stage and stealing the Taylor's moment, no doubt. Taylor was graceful and did not make a scene, which speaks well for her maturity and when Beyonce won, she invited Taylor back on stage. Which surprises me because we all know about Beyonce and her ego, so kudos to B' as well.

Now here is the thing I do not understand. The public's reaction to this. All of a sudden, people are up in arms and calling Kanye numerous names and saying they will never support him or his music any more. Now let's be real, if you say that, I seriously doubt you were really a 'fan' in the first place. Guy made a mistake, which he has apologized for.

Yeah he is a jerk (lol we all knew that didn't we?) but now we have wonderful remarks all over the net that proclaim it is because of his 'race'. Yeah, the internet racists are again out in force. People dropping n-words from the comfort of their computer screens. Now this upsets me a lot more then Kanye bum rushing Taylor. People always need to make it about race don't they? I give you, it was not classy but to say it is because he is a black man is absurd. He was upset, he had a little too much to drink. But to say it was because he was black? Now you are reaching a bit too far and I won't give you that. You people who post your hate speech on public sites like yahoo and YT make me sick and you know what?

Kanye is still going to sell records, he is still going to be a name on everyone's lips where it is because of something he did or music he made and you, my poor 'friend'. You will still be a coward that no-one cares about.

Oh and people like Yahoo gossip site ain't no better either. Direct quote.
"After the show, Swift, 19, told reporters she had no ill-will toward West, of whom she was once a fan".

LOL really? Did she tell you that herself? Or did you make it up to keep the flame going? Where is the proof because with none, that was tacky and not needed.

pP

Vampires, Blades and Roses

2009-09-08T20:13:00.004-05:00

So as you can hear, September's blogger soundtrack is up. I was coming up blank for awhile when it came to songs I wanted to share but almost in a row, these three songs came to me. As always I tried not to be too predicatable with my music choice and I feel this is probably a good example of me going outside the box. I will explain the songs in order of the title.

Vampires: Enrique makes his very first appearance. I have always liked this song since I heard it used during a cycle of America's Next Top Model (yes I used to watch that show). The video had this gothic urban feel to it and he even mentions vampires in the lyrics. Definately a good choice, especially in light of it's company.

Blades: I am a big fan of BLEACH the anime. I have been following it on and off for almost 2 years but in the last year or so I have become a really big fan. One of my favorite characters happens to be Rukia.

One of my favorite scenes by far is when she saves the protagonist Ichigo with one of her patented attacks. The music that was played at that scene really struck me on first listen. The name of the song is 'Senna'. Now here comes a surprise. I realized very recently that 'Senna' is named after Senna from the Bleach movie, Memories of Nobody which I recently seen. So yep, it's techinically Senna's song, borried by Rukia. One of the reasons why I dig 'Senna' so much is the violins and how it has this 'Firefly'/ Old Western feel. Maybe it is just me but it reminds me a lot of 'Serenity' opening credits (another awesome instrumental/ score).

Roses: The final song is 'Desert Rose' by Sting feat Cheb Mami. I have always been a fan of Sting but 'Desert Rose' was the first time I brought a cd with Sting on it. I think it was the exotic crooning of Cheb Mami that attracted me so much. Anyhow when I think of Zafina in Tekken, this song comes to mind and to no surprise, I will be using it for my forthcoming combo video.

Well that's the breakdown, enjoy the tunes.

pP

Autumn Falls

2009-09-04T22:15:00.004-05:00

It's that time of the year. Fall, when leaves start changing colors and then lose their leaves. Back in Australia (where we call Fall, Autumn and it was a completely different time of the year) I never really experience a change in scenery. It is mainly because Australia has tons of every green trees and they do what the name implies. They stay green all year long.

So the first time I experienced Fall, I was taken back. Seeing all these trees with multiples of amber, yellows and dark browns leaves. Seeing big piles of leaves on people's lawns. It was and still is quite a sight and I can understand why my wife enjoys it so much.

It is not just the aesthetics either. There is a change in the air, it's not super hot like Summer but it's not freezing cold like Winter. It's the best of both worlds.

Another reason why I always enjoyed Fall/ Autumn is because of September. September is me and my son, Bastion's (born on same day too) birth month so it's double awesome.

So next up, I will be updating my music player with new music and I also want to drop a quick plug for my brand new blog http://www.apocryphicvideos.blogspot.com.

pP

Rave: Ninja Gaiden Black

2009-08-27T21:23:00.005-05:00

So tying this latest blog with my first blog of this month, I have been dedicating a lot of my spare time lately to beating Ninja Gaiden Black. I have finally completed the side quest 'Eternal Legend' and I have just conquered it's Very Hard mode. Now trust me, Very Hard lives up to it's name. This game is hands down the hardest game I have ever played.

Ninja Gaiden Black takes everything you love about video gaming and takes it to the next level. It's a game that rewards you for keeping on your toes and it never cuts you any slack. If anything it makes your job even harder by lessening things that could help you out like healing potions and stuff like that. Instead it throws explosive bats (I kid you not) and boxes of the most annoying Ghost Fish at you. Never have you fought enemies that are so 'smart' or vicious. Bosses are epic encounters with you dodging a stream of fireballs, energy charges or pillars of stone, all in a row, all the while fighting off his/her lackies.

To top it all off, there is rewards a plenty for mastering the game. You can un-lock the original Ninja Gaiden arcade game and 3 more outfits. Yes, it has been said before but I need to say it as well. This is the pinnacle of action video gaming. Play it and believe.

This game is seriously tiding me over till Ninja Assassin staring Rain hits scenes this Novemeber.

pP

Tomorrow Comes Today

2009-08-15T14:35:00.004-05:00

Just a quick one, letting people know what is coming up next for Apocryphic Visions.
I have uploaded Lee's New Moves video which has gone down pretty successfully.

Coming up next is Jin's New Moves video (should be done by coming Wednesday)

After that I will start working on my Zafina combo video which I am really looking forward to

Also I will be uploading the 'directors cut' version of this video on Blogger using the music I prefer as well, so look forward to that.

Apocryphic Visions 09

pP

Best of Me

2009-08-08T19:53:00.006-05:00

So it is a new month, therefore it is new music time.

My Pledge by Collision. Collision is my little 'big' brother and a hip hop star on the rise. The song is produced by my cousin Mysterious. Both of their myspace pages are Collision and Mysterious. I felt this would be a perfect song, it all about not comprimising your vision and representing your home-town. This will also be the song I am using for my forthcoming Lee's BR New Moves Tekken video, linking it to my King's BR New Moves video which also used Collision/ Mysterious as well.

Supernova by Mr. Hudson feat Kanye West. LOL Kanye had to make his apperance somehow and yep he is still using autotune. However this song is more about his protege, Mr. Hudson. Very anthemic song with a great breakdown (you got it wrong if you say our love is gone). Video is pretty choice (British slang since Mr. Hudson is a Brit) as well.

Best of Me by Jazmine Sullivan. My girl, Jaz kills this song even through I swear she is channeling some Alicia Keys on this iTune bonus track. It is the inspiration for the blog title as well. A really good song and you can hear the emotion in her voice. Got to love her.

Well that's it for this month. Enjoy!

pP

Rave/ Rant: YouTube

2009-08-04T17:35:00.004-05:00

I have this love/ hate relationship with YouTube (YT).

I love the fact that I can watch movie trailers, music videos and matches of Tekken and other games at my leisure. It also has a massive library to watch from as well because nearly everyone uses YT and uploads stuff as well.

I love how it is easy to upload something on YT and I can share it with a friend that lives in Australia without having to send him a raw file over MSN that takes up most of a night. All this is awesome.

On the other hand I hate YT because of it's limitations. WMG and YT still haven't settled their differences so there are no WMG artists on YT... if there music is uploaded, they get taken down straight away. I actually like some of WMG artists so this is frustrating that these two haven't settled their quarrel yet. On top of that, Universal Music Group is awesome with uploading music videos by why don't they allow embedding. I want to share the latest video on my Myspace but I can't because UMG doesn't allow it. Umm... huh? I am giving you free publicity and sharing your artists music with people who might also get interested in it but you don't want me too? How does that make sense?

Don't get me started how you can't upload your own videos with other people music either. I have beaten that horse before and it still annoys me.

And then we have my main beef with YT. The racists, ignorant and down right stupid people who use it to spew their hateful speech. I read all these comments on videos with people just being plain hateful and they are allowed to be because they are hiding under the anomity of the internet. It's digusting and after awhile I stop reading comments all together. I know this isn't YT's fault BUT it really does dampen the experience.

And finally YT is filled with some seriously silly people who don't know how to rate videos and because of that I refuse to allow them to rate my Tekken match videos anymore. People seem to rate videos for dumb reasons, like their favorite character didn't win, or the camera was shaky or something lame like that. Because of that from here on in, all my Tekken match videos I will disable ratings. I given people a chance to rate matches with my first batch of T6 vids and YT audiences failed miserably. Watch the matches, post your opinions that is all.

Well that was fun to get off my chest.

pP

Rain is Coming Down

2009-08-02T20:23:00.003-05:00

EDIT: Trailer is no longer available. View it
Here.

This is what me and my wife have been waiting for. The official trailer for Ninja Assassin starring our fave Korean pop star Rain.

The people behind this film gives me reason to look forward to this. We have Rain, Naomi Harris (from Street Kings) and Sho (master ninja of the '80's) Kosugi.

The film is directed by the same guy behind V for Vendetta and produced by the Warchowski Bros. (of Matrix fame). Add Dark Castle (one of my favorite production companies) and I am more then sold.

Trailer looks awesome too with some serious bad ass moments. I can't wait to see this on a big screen. I am also happy to see an Asian star in a Hollywood vehicle that is not Jet Li or Jackie Chan.

November is going to be awesome!!

pP

Funny How Things Work Out

2009-07-15T02:16:00.004-05:00

A couple weeks ago I was preparing to write a blog for 'Cloudale' but as I was I got news about Michael Jackson's death. Because of that I changed my post to reflect my thoughts. I always wanted to get back to the original blog I had planned but as always life got in the way.

Now in the quiet moments of Wednesday morning, I can re-visit what I was originally intended on writing.

In my 'Signpost' blog I premiered the 'Cloudale' teaser video. This is the original version and the way I intended it to be seen. However when I went to upload the video on Facebook, they wouldn't allow the video to be upload due to music clearance. So I went back to the storyboard and re-did the trailer with new music. The new music is actually from a game called 'Final Fantasy X' (great game btw) and is actually a very popular track called 'To Zanarkand'. Now here comes a funny story... I did this because I had to have a track that couldn't be music claimed BUT in the end I ended up liking just as much as the original intended version. Funny how that worked out eh? In the end, I am extremely happy with both teasers.

When I get back from my family reunion in Alabamba, I might sit down and actually start writing 'Cloudale' in earnest. The again, life might get in the way again.

pP

Makes Me Wonder

2009-07-11T17:11:00.002-05:00

So once again it's that time to update my music on my blog.

Now usually I would go to myflashfetish.com to update as I have since I have started this blog. However some recent changes at that site (including a lot of additional steps and forcing one to use a secondary site called mixpod.com) has left a really bad taste in my mouth. Let it be known that because of these changes I now REFUSE to use that site again. It's a shame because for awhile I relied on it a lot. This is a 'Rant'... myflashfetish/ mixpod.com/ whatever... you have lost some serious patronage.

Fortunately another site (which I will link y'all too) called www.profilepitstop.com has the same set up that myflashfetish used to have so, people this is a 'Rave'... it's great. It user friendly and it doesn't require you to go through the loops unlike a certain site I used to use. Sure the players ain't as fancy but I can deal with that.

So the music itself. This month we have a very diverse mix which is great because that reflects me and my strange taste.

Makes Me Wonder- Maroon 5. One of those songs that is so dang catchy that once you hear it you can't get it out of your mind. I liked this song when it first came out and a couple years later, it is still one of my favorite songs from them.

Faust- Gorillaz. Thanks to my awesome local library (www.lanepl.org) I was able to hear this and many other Gorillaz songs. I really enjoy the dream like quality of it and with a cool title like 'Faust' I couldn't resist using it.

Street Lights- Kanye. A main stay of my music players, this is like the 4th (4TH!!) time I have used a song off 808's and Heartbreak. I really dig the album even tho it's auto tune theme. This song strikes a cord and it fits in well with Makes Me Wonder.

Time for a everything is connected moment... all of these songs are albums that I was able to get from my local library... yep... I need to write a blog about how awesome Lane Public Library is... ahh well next time.

pP

Monster Mash

2009-07-05T14:07:00.004-05:00

So I hope you checked out the trailer below. It is the very first Apocryphic Visions/ Fairy Tyme Entertainment co-production. For y'all who are not in the know, Fairy Tyme Entertainment is my wife's company and we now also have a YouTube page which we shall be sharing and uploading videos together. Check it out www.youtube.com/fairytymeent.

We shall still keep our respective pages (www.youtube.com/pigeondrago and www.youtube.com/blackfairy2079) for our own favorites and what nots.

So the actual trailer/ teaser. I have decided to do a Primal Rage combo video using the Genesis/ Megadrive engine. As most people know, the Gen/MD version of 'PR' isn't as flexible as the arcade or later versions of the game but it does have something exclusive to it. That of course is the short-cuts. Yes, in the Gen/MD version if you use a six button controller, you can use the left over buttons (PR is a 4 button game) to peform instant special moves. Using this unlocks a lot more combo potential in the game which I hope to explore and show off.

On top of that, I will also show off the fatalities (including Chao's infamous 'Golden Shower' one) as well as some of the extra eggs. I will also be editing in more 'Cloverfield' and 'Jurassic Park' footage as well.

In all honesty, I don't want to get this video banned and I might be using claimable music so I might put the final product exclusively on Blogger.

Stay tuned... Rage is coming!

pP

Rage: MD/GEN Combo Video Trailer

2009-07-05T14:04:00.001-05:00

It is Coming!

Rave: Transformers: RotF

2009-07-01T15:53:00.004-05:00

Warning: This rave about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen may contain **SPOILERS**

So me and my brother Larry (technically he is my brother in law but I consider him as much as my brother as my blood brothers are) went and saw what is being called the biggest blockbuster of this summer. LOL if you can not figure out what it is, there really isn't much hope for you. I mean the picture didn't 'slightly' give it away?

I am an 80's child through and through. I love the 80's and part of the reason I love the 80's is because it is filled with good memories, especially watching cartoons as a young kid. One of my favorite shows was Transformers (now called Transformers: Generation One by the marketing people). It was awe inspiring to see these big robots transform into cars and planes and battle it out. Certain character names have been forever etched in my mind and many others. I mean if I say Optimus Prime, you know I am talking about a massive blue, red rig right? Or if I say Starscream, you have visions of a fighter jet with a screachy voice.

Well two years ago, Transformers got the Hollywood treatment and it was a success. Everyone loved it, critics and fans. It was not the Generation One version, sure certain characters had the same names but it was updated to look more current. I had no problem with Bubblebee no longer looking like a beetle and not talking because deep down it was the same loyal Bubblebee I remember from the cartoon.

No surprise, due to the success, they decided to make a sequel. The producer and director, Michael Bay (i.e Mr. Big Explosions) heard the complaints we had. We complained that some of the scenes where the robots fought didn't look right, we complained that we didn't get enough transformers. So in the sequel he addressed our complaints.

He gave us incredibly detailed battles with slow-motion at the right moments to emphasis a big hit (the fight between Optimus and multiple decepticons in the forest is a great example). Transformations went to the next level and looked alot more detailed and we had tons of new robots along with the inclusion of old favorites like Soundwave and Ravage (updated of course).

So he gave us what we wanted. He also gave us more Megan Fox because the fan boys demanded that. So why, oh why, do the critics feel the need to tear this film apart?

Reviewers are pointing out plot holes, what movie does not have some plot holes. You are just nit picking and you know it. Critics are deriding the acting, come on, was it that bad? And now bloggers are having a field day on the Mudflap and Skids, twin robots whom some people are calling racist. Umm WHAT? Why do people see racism where it clearly doesn't exist. Yes, they were using ebonics, yes they acted stupid. Yes, one had a gold tooth BUT since when did these things equal racism? We have tons of stupid kids out there who speak like Mudflap and Skids, Black, White or Asian. They were clearly younger Transformers put into the movie for comedic relief. Racist tho? I feel people who say that are looking in an empty room and saying "that's a mighty nice chair". They are seeing something that does not exist.

So sterotypes yes... and believe you me, I hate sterotypes but racism? I simply do not believe it. I took it with a grain of salt and even laughed and some of there dumb moments.

All in all, see the movie. Make up your own mind. Do not be a sheep and follow the herd. Make up your own mind.

My personal opinion stands (read my opinion, yours may differ but that's what I am encouraging you to do, make your OWN). It was a great Hollywood blockbuster. Filled with explosions, action and some really nice scenes. I did not go in expecting a masterpiece of modern cinema. I wanted to see robots fight it out just like I did when I was young. I went to the movie to be entertained.

And entertained, I was.

pP

Crack the Code...

2009-06-30T01:27:00.002-05:00

Simply take out the X's... but are you ready for the answers?

pP

Rest in Peace Michael Jackson.

2009-06-25T17:34:00.002-05:00

I was just about to write a blog about 'Cloudale' and I just got the most shocking news. Michael Jackson died today.

Speaking from personal experience, I grew up with M.J. He was the inspiration behind my brother's English name. Most of my family idolized him. I even performed to one of his songs a long time ago (I wish to forgot that peformance tho). When I heard today that he was taken to the hospital, I was shocked but I did not think that the day would end with his death and now he is gone.

Michael Jackson has always been my epitome of a pop star. Every person after Michael, were simply trying to be Michael. Most of them won't even deny it. He was a star and he left his mark.

I hate the tabloids and it shocks me to the core that they were able to take a person who once had a successful career and destroy it to the point where people would ignore his contribution to society. He WAS pop music. This man made 'Thriller', 'Smooth Crimminal', 'Bad', 'Billie Jean'... the list goes on and on. Sure he had not made anything of that same calibur recently but his legacy can not be denied.

I can't believe it... early today I wrote in an email to my wife that with Farrah Fawcett's death that it was the end of an era. Now it's not even a question, It truely is.

Good-bye Michael, you have gone to a better place... thank you for all your have done for us. I will continue to ignore the bad and remember the good. You deserve it.

R.I.P. the King of Pop.

pP

Signposts.

2009-06-24T01:46:00.001-05:00

There is some signposts that signifies when a project of mine is in the works.

One of them is me putting together a playlist of songs that I feel will get me into the mood to write. It's the soundtrack of my project if you will. I have already done that and I will share the 'Cloudale' ost (official sound track) when I am done.

Another signpost is that I start writing a character bible and an outline. Whilst the outline is not done, the character bible is.

And finally we come to the above signpost. A teaser created by my company Apocryphic Visions. Nearly all my projects have teaser videos. 'The Woods' has one, 'Run' has one and 'Hauntings' as well, 'The Mansion' actually has two. Believe it or not the only project I have completed that I did not do a teaser for was 'Homecoming' mainly because what I had in mind was a bit too ambitious and I don't have the means to create it yet.

However this blog is about 'Cloudale's teaser. I believe it is subtle but I think it works. This teaser is also my first attempt and doing some animation and it worked out okay... LOL I am no Pixar but it got the job done.

So more about the actually teaser itself. The music is 'Postcards from Far Away' by Coldplay from their 'Prospekt's March EP'. I liked the dream like quality of it. It's kind of sucky because when I get around to uploading this on YT, I will have to change the song so I don't get music claimed. It's a shame but at least the original/ directors cut can be viewed here.

The 'Cloudale' logo is very straightforward as well. I ran with the cloud motif and the covering of a sun, foreshadowing dark days of drama to come.

I also used a quote from one of the characters just like how the 'The Woods' trailer did with "Do you think something is out there" (thanks for the v/o work wifey) line. The context of the quote will become more apparent as you read the novel itself.

It occurs to me it's ironic that I am talking about signposts when Cloudale is an actual destination that we will all be heading towards soon. I guess in the end... everything is... wait... no... I use that too much. Hmm. Okay. Trying again.

All Roads Lead to Cloudale...

ahh better.

Rants and Raves: The List

2009-06-22T15:15:00.000-05:00

It is common for me to copy and paste something from blogger to facebook, I do it all the time. It however is un-common for me to copy and paste from facebook to blogger... I however felt I needed to share this one tho.

Rants: Something that gets on my nerves, Raves: something I enjoy and can't stop talking about.

Rant: People who favorite their OWN videos that they have uploaded on youtube... LOL why?Rave: Shining Force games... destroyer of my free time.
Rant: Seasons Beating 3... so bad, I refuse to go back for Seasons Beatings 4
Rave: The Fame by Lady GaGa. Album is like audio crack.Rant:
My hair in the morning... urgh.
Rave: The way my hair stays fine for the rest of the day heh.
Rant: Diet Dr. Pepper... take something extremely good and just make it not.
Rave: Dr. K from Krogers groceries... taste just like Dr. Pepper at a fraction of the cost.
Rant: Writers block.
Rave: Being on fire and can't stop writing.
Rant: TV shows on hiatus.
Rave: Current season of So You Think You Can Dance... go Ade and Melissa.
Rant: Cloudale... so hard to get started.
Rave: Cloudale... LOL

pP

Magnum Opus

2009-06-18T12:44:00.000-05:00

Linking to my last blog, I think I might describe what 'Cloudale' is for people who are not in the know.

The best way for me to describe 'Cloudale' is epic. I actually had plans to write it way before 'Hauntings', 'Run' and tons of other projects I have completed in the intermin. I still see 'Homecoming' as a big achievement. I am proud that I was able to write it and it was definately a story that needed to be told. However 'Cloudale' is on another level. It is my magnum opus.

Magnum opus in latin means 'a great work' not 'the great work' but a great work. It's also a title used for big undertakings. Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower' series of books is his magnum opus (he has describe it as thus) and Clive Barker's books about 'The Art' will probably get to that level.

One of the reasons why I kinda avoided 'Cloudale' at first is because of this epic nature of it. I have to re-assure myself that I can write something of this magnitude and to make matters worse for myself. I upped the ante recently. 'Cloudale' was originally going to be three novels, interconnected with each other... yeah sounds kinda familar doesn't it?

'Cloudale' tho was going to take 'everything is connected' to the next level tho and certain characters who played minor roles in earlier stories would take centre stage in following books. In hindsight tho, I don't think three books will do it justice anymore. I keep wanting to add new characters and I want to make sure they all get to tell their story. I had already did the three book trilogy of interconnected stories in 'Hauntings' also. So 'Cloudale' will be a lot of interconnected 'episodes' and I am thinking more tv series then trilogy.

Now only time will tell if I can bring it all to life.

Also I will like to debut Cloudale's tagline.

'All Roads Lead to Cloudale'.

pP

Turning around to go Forward

2009-06-12T18:57:00.000-05:00

It's funny, yesterday I wrote a rather personal blog about how I am feeling lately. Whilst that blog has not became reduant I have had some changes.

The first and most obvious one is the audio change. I finally found 3 songs that I would like enough to make a player with and boy did I go through the wringer to get it up here. I really miss the days where it was simple and not this new beta crap they have on Mixpod.

The 3 songs are different I must admit. It's not my usually combination of r'n'b/ hip hop and Kenna songs that usually dominate my music players. All three of them have a distinctly electronic feel to it but do not get it twisted, I am not going techno on people. I just dig these songs.

B.E.P's Boom Boom Pow I have mentioned before, I like it because when I listen to it, I get visions of crazy combos in any fighting game I play especially when the beat comes in at 2:00. I really want to make this work so don't be surprised to see a project with this song. It's funny as I am growing to like it more, I am hearing it more and more everywhere. So You Think You Can Dance used it recently for example. Tho like always I was feelin' the song before I saw it on tv... strange how that happens eh?

Don't Trust Me by 3OH3! is a guilty pleasure of mine. When I first saw the video I was like WTF?! Then I watched it some more and I was still WTF?! but hey, I don't mind it and now I really like it LOL. The song is also the inspiration for my signature on SRK in case you were not in the know. Oh and yes I know that Helen Keller line is controversial but controversy sells records, ask Eminem.

I Like It Rough by Lady Gaga is just too damn good. Anyone that know me, knows that I love multi-part chorus and this song has it in spades. It's stupidly addictive, like most of her songs off her 'The Fame' album.

The second change is something related to my writing. I have been sitting around waiting for inspiration to hit me again but nothing. However one thing I realized is I am sitting on a story, I just have not written it yet. Hence the title, I think I might put my finger to word processor and go back to one of my original stories I always wanted to write. This saga (because it will be one, trust me) actually predates 'Homecoming' and 'Run' but was never written, till now. Yes, it is time to visit...

Cloudale.

pP

At this Point...

2009-06-11T16:01:00.001-05:00

So it's actually been awhile and I must apologize. For some strange reason, I haven't felt like posting a blog lately.

It's eleven days into the new month and I haven't even updated my music player and truth be told the reason why is because I haven't heard any songs that really makes me want to create a new player. I got some songs that I am diggin' like 'Boom Boom Pow' (mainly because of the combo video potential with that beat) but nothing is really getting me really excited.

It's been awhile since I had a great idea that I want to write down and run with and it doesn't help that people say they are interested in reading my material and then never get back to me.

I have not done any video editing in ages. Literally I can't remember the last project I edited and it's sad because I have ideas but they literally go away as fast as they come.

So yeah, the only thing I have done recently that I am even remotely proud of is, I finished Shining Force (the original) and I did it in style.

I am just feeling nonchalant lately.

pP

Best Laid Plans

2009-05-12T13:21:00.000-05:00

Sometime last year I was working on a combo video for Lee from Tekken. I was going to use mainly Dark Resurrection footage but the best laid plans sometimes do not work out.

It originally started as a Lee meets James Bond concept (Quantum of Solace was on the verge of coming out). I interchange footage of the trailer with scenes of Lee kicking ass. I thought it was a match made in heaven. Bond is sauve and dressed in suits as he kicks ass and Lee is the same. To top it off I was going to use 'You Know My Name' by Chris Cornell, i.e the song he wrote and sang for the first Bond re-boot film 'Casino Royale'.

I was really running with the theme, I asked a person on YT to help me out with it because another visual effect I had in mind was the trademark James in the barrell of the bullet that opens most Bond films. The person on YT was surposed to do that for me but instead of James he was going to put Lee. That did not work out and I never got a response after our initial contact and I sent follow up messages that were un-answered (thanks dude, really). As time went on, the movie was released and the original trailer I created with 5.0 footage was music claimed by YT as well.

It look destined that my James Bond theme wasn't going to work out as planned so I went back to the drawing board. I began to work on a new theme, 'War' which was a clash of the two group of characters I used. High Mecha represented by Lee, King, Jack-5 and Bryan vs Dark Rain represented by Julia, Baek, Bruce and Paul. As you can see from the above video, this video was going to be a prelude to 'War' with a Lee focus. Some new, more stylish combos were added (I picked up some more tricks between videos) and once again I was ready to run with it.

However my plans got stalled again and I was never able to re-do the above footage on DR PS3 and direct capture it as opposed to a wobbly digital camera. I felt after my successful King combo video 'Resurrection' was direct captured that it would be silly to go back to my old style (i.e 'Dominator' which was done with a digital camera).

So here we are. DR is official dead, no-one really wants to watch a new Lee combo video anymore on YT, everyone wants to see T6 or T6: BR videos so I deaded the project. I did keep the footage tho and I decided to share it with you, my reader. It was fun to make and now it can be archived. Another thing is I do not have to worry about random noobs (which there are plenty of on YT) critiquing the video and not knowing what they are talking about. Oh and the music can't get music claimed as well which is awesome as well.

For people outside of my inner circle, this will be the first time you have seen this. Please enjoy what could have been.

Ecstasy La Sober

2009-05-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

Well it's a new month and you know what that means for my blog. New music of course. This blog title is of course inspired by the three songs I choose to be the soundtrack for this month. Kinda like the last title which used all three songs, Ecstasy La Sober actually makes more sense then Welcome to the Running Hurricane.

The explanation of it would be we all live in ecstasy but soon or later we will come back down and need to be sober. I can relate to this. I just completed writing 'Run' and I was on cloud nine. However as time went home the high went away and now I find myself trying to write again but coming up blank. I was on a high and now I am sober.

The irony of this through I did not think about this till I picked the title (literally 20 mins ago). I picked these three songs because they are among my nine favorite songs right now. So without further ado.

Sober by Pink: I'm a big fan of Pink especially her 'Can't Take Me Home' days. Over the years she has changed more into a punk rock chick and less the r'n'b diva she was. Sometimes it worked ('Like a Pill', 'Family Portrait') and sometimes it did not ('Trouble'). I can say through 'Sober' is definitely one of my favorite songs by her. From my first listen I knew I would grow to love this song and I have. It's a very deep song and anyone can relate.

Viva La Vida by Coldplay: Viva La Vida translates into Long Live Life and once again Coldplay makes an appearance on my blogger. Unlike 'Sober', I did not gravitate to this song from first listen. The video directed by Hype Williams however was definitely eye catching so it keep the song in my mind. However as time went home I listened to the song more and I grew to appreciate it more and more. One of my favorite bits is when the band comes in and chants with Chris. The lyrics are deep as well which is always good.

Ecstasy by Danity Kane: R.I.P. DK. I am among the Danity Kane fans that are sad that they have broken up and no longer making good music like this. Like 'Sober' I knew I would like this song from first listen. Sure Rick Ross' rap wasn't needed but as it stands the song is still awesome. I love the build to the epic final chorus. This song definitely takes me to ecstasy. No pun intended.

Well enjoy

pP

Shine Your Light

2009-04-28T12:48:00.001-05:00

Dang Shining Force CD...

One of the things that I was always disappointed with was that I had a Megadrive but I never could afford a Mega CD. One of the reasons why I wanted one was Eternal Champions CD (see previous blog), the other reason was Shining Force CD.

This game is why I haven't been blogging as much. Thanks Mike Funkin South for hooking me up. Old Skool is better then New Skool.

pP

Phillip meet Phil...

2009-04-13T16:56:00.000-05:00

So observant people might see that I now have a contributing writer to both 'Rants & Raves' as well as 'Run: Side by Side'. His name is Phil. Confused? Don't worry I will explain but before I do let's have a quick history lesson.

Now for the longest time I have been using my optusnet email addy as my primary address. I signed up for everything and everywhere with my optusnet email. So my myspace, my facebook and youtube, you get the picture. They were all associated with my optusnet email. However for the longest time I always wanted to get rid or at least associate less things with my optusnet. One, it is an Australian email addy and the part after the @ was long and hard to explain to people. I mean optusnet.com.au, people are puzzled by the optusnet (since Optus is an Australian phone company that doesn't operate around the world) and second the au (standing for Australia) at the end had people thrown off as well. Another major issue I had with my optusnet was when I signed up for optusnet, the person whom set up my account, put my name down as Philip, yep with one L when my name is Phillip. So another problem emerged when I gave away my email address to anyone. People be like "Phillip, so it's one L as per your email?" and I will have to say "no it's two L's... the dude whom set me up, messed up". Annoying? yes it was.

So a couple weeks ago, inspired by how useful gmail was as I used another account, I decided to create a gmail address. I decided to make my gmail address a main address for all my stuff as well as a representation for my budding company. Hence apocryphicvisions@gmail.com was born. No more one L, no more optusnet, no more au. Gmail is a well known email provider now, it is up there with yahoo and hotmail. After that I started to associate all my websites I visted/ accounts with my gmail instead of my optusnet so it would force me to use it a lot more (I had another gmail account, many moons ago which feel into disrepair because I didn't use it due to reliance on my optusnet. I did not wanted to make that mistake again). A couple of them were easy as pie and now all my stuff is linked in a nice little bow. I can now be reading my latest email and automatically login to my YT account with a click of a button.

Then I noticed something. Blogger was one of the last things I signed up with my optusnet. An annoyance is when I am logged into my blogger under my optusnet email, my gmail and automatically log me out because of Goggles' multiple account/ one login theory. I would be flying blind if I was in middle of a long blog (which I do write) I could not know if I received a email in my gmail account, unless I logged out of my blogger first. It became a hassle and I wanted to not have to do it anymore.

So I tried to do what I have done with all my other sites/ account. Stop associating optusnet with blogger and associate it with my gmail instead and then we hit what I must say is the retarded thing ever. Goggle won't let me change my primary email address from optusnet to my gmail. Nope, no dice. I have no idea why it is like this but it is and it is annoying as Hell.

Hence we come back to original statement. It turns out I can't associate my gmail with my optusnet blog BUT I can make my gmail account a 'contributor'. Hence Phillip (optusnet) and Phil (gmail). Now I can check my emails, whilst surfing YT, whilst writing a blog on blogger. I just can't make any major changes unless I log into my 'primary' email address.

Ta da!!

pP

P.S now all I need to do is explain people who want my email addy how to spell Apocryphic... it's not that hard LOL

Raves: Eternal Champions CD

2009-04-13T13:10:00.001-05:00

So I said in my last blog entry that Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side was a massive improvement over its predecessor and no truer words have ever been said.

Eternal Champions: CftDS or Eternal Champions CD was developed for the Sega CD/ Mega CD (UK/Aus/Japanese owners) and off the bat, the developers took advantage of the Sega CD's Full Motion Video (FMV) abilities and rendered two impressive intros. The first was an introduction to 'Deep Water' which was supposed to be a sub-division for Sega games which pushed the envelope in terms of violence and mature themes. The gore followed images of a shark eating people abandoned on a raft was shocking to say the least.

Then the story of EC was told via FMV, in the previous entry, this story was told via a scrolling text but this time around we actually saw the nine protagonists in full 3D. To add to the fact that the game was a sequel, it also introduced the new characters. The 4 brand new fighters all stayed true to the games roots, when ether it was Rames the III, a Pharaoh or Raven, a witch doctor and the true villain of the series, the Dark Champion. The scene was set.

EC: CD is the perfect example of learning from your mistakes. EC was a decent game but it lacked a lot of things. EC: CD rectified most of these. First you could actually continue when you loss in the tournament (yah), no more being sent back to re-fight previous battles. The A.I. was still difficult (Larcen and Xavier are the Kings of anti-air for example) but now manageable.

The ying/yang special bar still existed but EC: CD added tons of new moves for each character that did not drain the bar or as much as other moves. The A.I. was still able to spam special moves with no special bar but hey, you can't have everything. Another major change was inclusion of proper combos and the concept of 'power' combos.

EC had 'combos' but EC: CD has combos that resembles other popular fighting games (SF, KOF, MK) where you can chain jump ins into low, standing moves into special moves. One could also juggle an airborne opponent for an extra hit too which was another nice inclusion. EC: CD took the concept to the next level and in a move which I say was a first of its kind (before KOF, SF, MK), a player could chain one special into another special (much like SF's special into super cancel but EC: CD was way before SF: EX, the first game to implement the concept). These big combos usually lead to a 'power' combo which the game awards you for doing with a corresponding SFX and a couple seconds of unlimited ying/yang special bar. Cutting a power combo on opponents was a satisfying thing and getting rewarded for it was like icing on the cake.

So these changes in game play were very welcomed. Aesthetically the game looked a little better. FMV ending/ bad ending were added for each character on top of some brand new backgrounds. The creators was also much like MK in that they loved secrets i.e Easter Eggs and whilst EC had overkills (stage triggered fatalities), EC: CD again took this to the next level. Making sure they earned the mature rating it was given, EC: CD included modified overkills from the original (with a lot more blood in some cases), brand new sudden deaths (another stage triggered death sequence which is obtained under different circumstances), vendettas (characters exclusive fatalites) and cine-kills where if you fulfill the correct circumstances, the Dark Champion would appear and in FMV style, will kill your opponent in a devious way (exposing the vampire, Midnight to sunlight for example). All these finishers have to be seen to be believed. They did not break the game tho and some of them required some real specific circumstances so they were the exception and not the norm way of finishing a match. Then you have the secret characters and in EC tradition, even the secret characters have a long detailed back story even if the hidden character is an Owl or a Monkey, yes I said a monkey. Only in EC lol!

I have mentioned the Dark Champion and he is the new hidden boss as well. The Eternal and Dark Champion still had to be beaten multiple times (Eternal gaining 4 extra animal forms, so you have to beat him 9 times with one life bar which gets replenished slightly every win) and the Dark Champion uses natural disasters like fire storms, lighting, earthquakes and more. He had to be beaten 9 times as well. Also just like the original, if you lose to either, it's game over, no continues. So for the people who love the challenge, it still exists. It's just not as un-fair in this one.

So overall EC: CD is a massive improvement and I really can't stop raving about it as you can see. It is sad through because one of the expected improvements actually did not happen. With the move to CD, most people were expecting even better music like how Sonic CD and Ecco CD both have lush multi instrument tracks. EC already had great music to me and I figured it could only get better. It did not and in my opinion, the music is the worse thing in EC: CD which is a shame. EC: CD greatest insult to me was removing the awesome title and bio music and replaced it with 'something'. Even character songs have been changed for the worse. It is a small flaw in such an awesome game tho so I do overlook it.

EC: CD comes highly recommend. It is a shame that it was released for the Sega CD so it never got the market and acclaim it deserved but with the wonderful world of emulation, nearly anyone can experience it and give it a go. Trust me, it might not be SF and it can not be played competitively (too many infinites and damaging scaling is non existent) but it is definitely a fun game.

Sega of America was even planning on making a third one for the Saturn but because of Virtua Fighter emergence and Japan's lack of interest in the game it never came to be. I for one would have love to seen it, if the game improved so much over just one game, one can only imagine how much better it the third one would have been.

As it stands, EC: CD is a lost gem and deserves to be discovered and enjoyed.

Raves: Eternal Champions (Original)

2009-04-10T10:46:00.000-05:00

FINALLY lol that was frustrating as hell. Sorry y'all but the last couple days I have been trying to add a YT video to my blog and it just wasn't working. I original started with an essay and when that didn't go through, I did a more simply test and that didn't go through so I just ended up typing test and viola... it finally works.

Anyway, it has been awhile since my last 'rave'. The subject of this rave is Eternal Champions. The original Genesis/ Megadrive (as we called it in Australia) version. EC has one of the coolest soundtracks and one of my favorite songs is the song it played during each characters biography. The song is so pimp that Bone Thugs N Harmony (Ohio stand up!) even sampled it for one of their songs.

Eternal Champions was released back in 1993. It was touted as Sega's in house answer to Street Fighter 2 and in a lot of it's ads it seemed like EC was mocking SF II. However for all it's bravura, it was not so and SF has continued to a be a Juggernaut in the gaming industry and EC has faded to obscurity. EC has some awesome stuff tho. First are the characters, each character were fully fleshed out protagonists with long back stories. When ether it be Shadow, the female assassin or Trident, the merman from Atlantis. It was not just the characters too, each protagonist practiced a real martial art, where ever it be Savate (Jetta) or Muey Thai (R.A.X.) and the game explained the history behind their art as well. It was detailed and the storyline was different. It wasn't just a tournament to see who was the best, it was a tournament to determine who deserved a second chance at life.

The graphics were detailed and the stages were lush, especially for a GEN/ MD game. EC also had a very innovative system of performing special moves where all moves were charge motion attacks (think Guile from SF) or multiple button inputs. Add a very detailed and fun to muck around with training mode, multi playing modes like tournament, kumite and more. It had tons of good stuff.

Also I have already added my favorite song from the OST above but the whole games music was very nice as well. The intro song and biography song especially stick in my head even when I am not playing the game.

The only problem tho was the game play, Eternal Champions had issues. LOL I am being nice, it had major issues. Anyone whom has played it will understand what I mean.

EC Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) was one of the most frustrating computers to fight against back in the day. LOL it's like Western programmers don't know how to make a game challenging but they know how to make a game cheap (hello Mortal Kombat 2 as well). I like a good challenge. It is why I love playing Ninja Gaiden Black, one of the most challenging hardest games ever but EC was ridiculous. Add to the fact that the A.I. also lets you opponent cheat. EC tried to be innovative with a ying/yang bar, that goes away as you perform special moves. You do a really damaging attack, your ying/yang bar suffers as a result and it will take awhile to come back. Now if the A.I. would actually respect the rules of the game, it would have been fair but nope. Even when the computer's ying/yang bar is tapped out, it can still perform all of it's attacks, you however ain't got nothing to work with but basic attacks and throws (which can't be broken). When certain characters like A.I. Trident can continuously put out his force fields which really messes us your game even when he should not be able too, it gets a bit frustrating.

Add the fact that EC does not have the conventional continue method. If you lose to someone, you get sent back a couple matches. So example, you are at player # 6, Jetta. Jetta pwns you (very hard to beat, always speeding up (as mentioned above without loss to her ying/yang bar) you then get sent back to player #3, Larcen (who is also a bish to fight). You then have to fight Larcen all over again, Player # 4 and Player # 5 and then you get your rematch with Jetta. WTF?! It's like by trying to be innovative, the creators made it retarded.

Oh and don't get me started about the last boss, the Eternal himself. Dude's first form already cheats with a invicibility move and then you have to proceed to beat his other 4 forms...with one life bar. Each form get proceeding cheaper too, his shark form especially and then ultimate grand daddy of B.S, if you lose two rounds to the Eternal, it's game over and you get the bad ending automatically. Nope you don't get sent back, you don't get a chance to continue. It is over.

LOL you now you are probably thinking, is this really a rave, it sounds more like a rant and I got to be honest, this game really lives up to my blog title. It is a rant and a rave but it's more of a rave because flaws and all, I still like this game. I still enjoy mucking around with it. I love the music, the characters, the setting. It's one of the fighting games where you actually want to see each characters' endings cause they are so involving.

EC was one of the many niche games I really got into back in the day. It and Primal Rage (another quirky fighting game with quirky special moves) were def played a lot by me. It had its issues but it was still a fun game. Now in the next part I will rant about its sequel and boy, talk about upgrade you...

Side by Side

2009-04-07T14:27:00.000-05:00

Just a quick plug for my new blog "Run: Side by Side".

This blog will run concurrently with 'Run' and will act as a companion piece. Basically all the stuff I usually reserve for my appendix will be in this.

If you really want to get the full story behind 'Run' I will reconmend you check it out.

http://avisionspresentrun.blogspot.com/

NOTE: If you are interested in reading 'Run' in it's draft stage, let me know.

Welcome to the Running Hurricane.

2009-04-01T11:21:00.000-05:00

Hah, that is such a stupid title but I like it. So the last couple days have been busy. I have updated my blog to reflect something more along my taste (lots of black and purple and some red). Today I have updated all my music players on my main sites, more on that later.

So the current songs on my blog and why I picked them.

Welcome to Heartbreak by Kanye West: Now I must admit I (among with a lot of others) looked at Kanye with a lot of doubt when he announced that he wanted to make an album purely with what is really killing hip-hop right now, auto-tune. However when he first premiered 'Love Lockdown' at one of the most tedious MTV award shows (MTV can't make a decent award show to save their life it seems) I was not that annoyed. If anything I did not mind it on first listen. On subsequent listens I actually began to like the song and then soon it actually started being played regularly on my window media player/ Flippa's (my nickname for my phone) mp3 player.
He then released 'Heartless' which I actually did not mind either and now 'Welcome to Heartbreak'. All three of these singles are not as bad as I thought they would be and Kanye has done something I did not think he could do anymore, surprise me. Kid Kudi, the singer on the song makes it awesome tho in my opinion. Now I wonder if 808s and Heartbreaks would be more of the same (which I might like) or will it re-enforce why I hate auto-tune. If anyone has a copy they would like to share, holla atcha boy eh?

Run- Leona Lewis: I LOVE Leona Lewis. First her voice reminds me of a old skool Mariah Carey (i.e. before she became a sex kitten), with how she can effortlessly control her tone and hit those crazy high notes. Bleeding Love is a song that I can never get tired of hearing, it is timeless and the reason why me and my wife picked up her album during our honeymoon. We definitely did not regret that choice that is for sure. 'Run' however is not from her US released album, it is actually from a deluxe UK version. When I first heard it, I feel in love with it. It was dark and moody and video fitted it so well that I could not get it out of my head.
Second. I am working on a short story called 'Run' and this song just gets me in the mood to write it.
Third. One of my favorite fighting game characters of all time is called Leona heh.
Props to Snow Patrol for the original version but Leona is what makes me love this song.

After the Hurricane- Jazmine Sullivan: When Jazmine first came out with 'Need U Bad' I liked her but it was follow up single 'Bust Your Windows' that made me sit up and notice her. That song alone made me want to buy her album and I was able to and at the same time give my lovely wife a nice Christmas present at the same time... yah! Her album is another wise purchase and 'After the Hurricane' is a great song on an album with a lot of great songs.
Oh and just like how I already had an idea to use 'Fix You' and then Brothers & Sisters used it, I was determined to use 'After the Hurricane' on my next player and then recently another show I watch, 'The Game' used it... this is extra funny because 'After the Hurricane' is not even a released single... kismet again I guess.

So before I mentioned my other 'main sites'... those of course being Myspace and Facebook. Both whom have new music on them as well which are completely different then each other and this blog as well. If you want the full scope of what is on my mind radio, make sure you check out those sites as well.

pP

Heroic or Hella dumb

2009-03-31T12:04:00.000-05:00

I was watching G4 Underground, a brand new series on G4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G4_(TV_channel)) and they did this whole feature on real life superheroes. Yeah bonafide people who believe they are superheroes. Neither of these guys had powers but they dressed up in their outfits and went out fighting crime and keeping the public peace.

For a moment I was cracking up at this poor sad souls. I love comic books and I always dreamed that I would wake up one morning and have some awesome powers. It's one of the reasons why I love watching Heroes. Waking up one morning and having super powers? That would be too awesome.

But I am grounded in reality and I know their is no such thing as human flight, teleportation or having fire come out of your hands. Sure people can be super heroes without powers I mean look at Batman but still I do not think even Batman is possible. I mean the guy is filthy rich and McGuyver skills and knows nearly every martial art known to man. The man has technology that no normal person would have access too. So yeah a person can not wake up one day and be like Batman. It is not realistic.

Coming back to this show, that is what these plain joes tried to do. They go out at night in spandex and leather (I am not kidding) or their $5000 specially made outfits (again, not kidding) and try to fight the good fight. Stopping crime, keeping drug dealers off the streets, trying to be Super heroes. Noble idea I must admit, stupid in execution. You are a grown ass man. Leave the super heroics to the 'real' Heroes, police officers. The world is not a playground and people get hurt, people die.

We do not need 'super' heroes, we need people with common sense.

pP

Couldn't resist...

2009-03-30T16:38:00.000-05:00

Blog needed a change... new music around the corner.

pP

April is around the corner...

2009-03-24T15:51:00.000-05:00

and change is in the air.

It's about a week to April and as always I feel like making some changes.

One of minor changes will be the music. As you can see, this months music players was called 'march' LOL yeah, inspired eh? Anyway I decided to actually keep the same music player for a whole month. In the new week I will have a new music player called 'april'... awesome.

A aside on the music I picked for this month (which I should have done a lot earlier).

Say Goodbye to Love- Kenna: An obvious choice, anyone who know me knows I love Kenna. I picked this track out of the many tracks I like because it was upbeat and I haven't used it in a player before (to my surprise).

Fix You- Coldplay: Now I must admit I was not an initial fan of Coldplay, I despised 'Yellow' when it first came out but as years went on, the band has def grown on me and Chris Martin is a pretty nice dude with cool friends (Jay Z, Kanye West to name a few). 'Fix You' is probably one of my favorite tracks from them and it was funny when one of favorite tv shows Brothers & Sisters used it in an episode recently. Fate? Sheer Coincidence? Who Knows.

Rise (Leave Me Alone)- Safari Duo: Easily one of my most favorite songs recently that is not by one of my favorite artists. I would have never heard about it if it was not for a KYSG Tekken combo video called 'Crossing Ideas'... as I watched KYSG perform some incredible ridiculous combos, this songs was being played and soon it got me to the point where I wanted to hear it outside of Tekken, the beat breakdown is particular awesome.

The other change I want to make is to my blog itself, I have had it for almost three months now and it looked exactly as it did when I first started. I am going to change it up a bit especially after checking out some of the other blogs out there. I want to personalize it a bit and make it more a Apocryphic Visions creation and less generic.

Onward...

pP

It Begins Again

2009-03-23T08:45:00.000-05:00

For people who do not know the history behind 'Run', it was actually something I came up with during the writing of 'Hauntings'. I created the cover you see above and even created a trailer for it. I, however put it on the back burner because I wanted to finished 'Hauntings' first. 'Run' remained through on my mind and I knew that after I finished 'Hauntings' it would be the next writing project I tackled. Well in between me finishing 'Hauntings' late last year and now, I hit a wall. The dreaded writers' block.

This morning however I woke up and for the first time in a long time I not only felt like writing but I actually could. Now you got to understand, there is a BIG difference between wanting and actually writing. I wake up many mornings, especially the last couple weeks 'wanting' to write. However I get caught up in my day to day affairs, which is sad to say, not much and by the end of the day I can not be bothered. It is not only that through. Things that seem so clear in my mind, I can not get to the harder part of putting pen to paper or in my case fingers to Word document. I have had a couple days like that, one too many.

This morning tho (which is now dated, thanks to this blog entry), that writer's block was gone and I was a dynamo. Concepts poured out of me and whilst I hit a couple false starts once I hit my stride I was confidant in what I was writing down.

As a writer I must admit the first chapter is always one of the hardest things to write. You always feel like you need to grab the readers attention. It was something we all discussed in my writers' workshop a couple weeks ago. Some of us have what some people like to call MTV attention spans. If something does not spring out and grab you, chances are you will not read it/ watch it/ whatever. With writing, that chance exists in the first chapter. If that first chapter does not spring out and get you, your book is probably going back on the shelf no matter how awesome the body is or jaw dropping your ending. So that is why writers slave over the first chapter and try to make it as dynamic as possible. Well after a couple of "maybe's" and a lot of "nah's" I have written the first chapter for 'Run'. I have re-read it a couple times, even read it out loud to my lovely spouse and she liked it too (of course she is bias but hey).

It begins again... now if I can keep up the momentum. The flood gates of creativity have re-opened and I want to make sure it does not get damned up again.

pP

P.S. I just did a spell check and I had no spelling mistakes at all in my first draft of this blog... yah go me!

Coming Soon...

2009-03-09T15:52:00.001-05:00

to a AVisions near you.

Speaking of Transformers, how awesome does the teaser for Revenge of the Fallen look?

Watchmen, Wolverine AND Transformers 2... it's going to be a good year for movie fans!

pP

You Can't Stop the Signal (part two)

2009-03-06T17:26:00.000-06:00

I have a round-a-bout way of thinking. Most of the times I will think of something which will lead to something else which would lead to something completely different which will lead to something entirely not related to the original thought but it will still kinda make sense and be connected, well at least to me.

So 'you can't stop the signal'. It's a line from Serenity, the big damn move (Firefly tv series reference). Firefly, created by Joss Whedon. I could go on and on about the show but this is not what the blog is about. It's not about Serenity, the movie that the fans of Firefly helped bring about. Nope, maybe some other time. No, this blog is all about 'you can't stop the signal'. No matter how they try to stop you, you can get your message out and you can make yourself heard.

For example, this video below

I created this video with and for my fellow F' Yeah/ Cincy Tekken players. It was a group project that I threw together after watching some of our Tekken footage. I noticed we were breaking a big amount of throws and I had an idea to do a montage of us throw breaking to the sounds of Linkin Park's Breaking the Habit. I was able to take some existing footage of us plus some new made for the video stuff and edited the hell out of it. I premiered it at our weekly gaming gathering MNT (Monday Night Tekken now Monday Night Thrashings)

It was pretty successful and everyone liked it. I was able to combined the look of 'Breaking the Habit' (which is an anime video with rough drawing art style) with pictures of Tekken I found,using the same type of artwork. It had a theme and at certain moments the lyrics would come up on the screen.

Then Warner Music Group (WMG) and YouTube had there falling out. WMG began to music claim every video on YT that had any WMG songs in it, snippets, full songs, whatever... they claimed it and soon, videos were being taken down, left right and center. Needless to say, Our 'Breaking the Habit' video was a causality of this little war that WMG has on YT.

So as it stood, YT muted the audio on the original video and now it exists on YT as a mere shadow of it's former self. I had to use Evanescene's (one of the few bands that actually allow YT to use their music indiscriminately) 'Going Under' so it just wasn't footage with no sound. But as it stands, I am displeased with the final result. Don't get me wrong, I love Evanescene. I have used there music in other projects and I am happy I at least have something I like accompanying the old video. However the video that exists on YT is not what I envision or intended to be seen. The pictures I used no longer have a reason, the lyrics on screen no longer match the song. The concept no longer makes sense.

Hence here we are on Blogger, a place where creatively is not stifled and restricted. Where a cold war between two companies do not affect the people who sustain them.

You can't stop the signal... don't even try.

You Can't Stop the Signal (part one)

2009-03-06T17:23:00.001-06:00

Firefly intro, hands down one of my favorite theme songs of ALL time for one of my favorite shows of ALL time.

To be continued in part two.

pP

Tekken 6: BR- Rants & Raves Review

2009-02-25T13:56:00.000-06:00

So if you have been keeping up with my facebook updates, you would know that I went to Nashville last weekend with my fellow F' Yeah clan mates Mike and Derrick to participate in a tournament and to finally play
For me and Derrick this was our first time touching the game and we completely missed Tekken Six. My first impression of the game is that it is very, very pretty. The insane amount of detail on each character's model was impressive, from the veins on Marduk's head to the ripples in Hwoarang's pants. I was also very impressed by the backgrounds. Each background had a couple nice touches. I am particular adored the 'Fountain Square' and 'Temple Grounds'. Both used some nice light tricks, especially 'Temple Grounds' which background changes from day to night to back to day.

The crowd to play was big but eventually I got to play and my first initial thought after playing it was wow... this game feels slow. It's a strange transition because Dark Resurrection feels as smooth as butter and for awhile I felt like I was playing in slow motion. The games feels alot more cinematic and epic, the sounds def give you that feeling too, their is some really 'meaty' sound effects after certain throws and moves and the sudden burst of sound lets you know when you are in 'rage'.

When I could play I picked King of course because he is my main character and tried to replicate some of the stuff I have seen in match videos whilst throwing out as many new moves as I possibly could. Right off the bat I was able to perform King's new throw (f,b,db,d,df,f+2) which he throws the opponent into the air, catches them on his shoulder and just slams them into the ground. I have re-christened this move the 'Dominator' because he just dominates the opponent. iSW combos tho were a different story. I think because King's jab has been changed to the universal 10 frame jabs that everyone has now, I couldn't seem to get the timing down. Not only that when I went for bound combos and every time I hit (b+2,1+2) to start my bound combo, on most people I would miss and get not just thrown but BACK thrown a couple times. It wasn't fun at all. I guess I will have to adapt to the new system but yep I def experienced some growing pains.

After awhile I was actually able to get iSW bound combos but only on Marduk. I was able to do it multiple times tho so I was very happy about that. In all honesty I don't even think after bound, you need to perform iSW (i.e instant shining wizard) but a standard shining wizard... i.e running 2+4. I guess my iSW skills are actually a hindrance rather then a benefit because both King's hands (the sign of an iSW) were coming out too early.

I also made sure I tried out moves I have only seen or read about like his new B+1,2. Df+4,3,d+4 and of course B+2,(CH)4 which lead to the Olympic Slam follow up which I really liked. I also perform most of his new BR moves because I consciously made a decision that I would make a New moves video for King when I got home (which I have).

One of the new moves that I did which got a massive pop (audience reaction/ wrestling term) was when I performed King's new u+1+2 choke throw and I threw the opponent into the wall and subsequently followed it with his new wall throw/ combo. The crowd went nuts and it's funny because these guys have access to the game and the same videos I have seen but it was me, an out of towner who showed it to them first. For awhile I have to answer a lot of "how the hell did you do that?" and "wow that was awesome, can you teach me" LOL.

I also played Lee but I didn't play him enough to get a good feel for him. I was focusing too much on King but Lee felt a lot more different, probably because of his shortened Mist Step and the new way of doing SS+2 combos (it is B+2,F now) not 1,2,F combos.

All in all, after a couple games I began to really like it and now I foresee myself really enjoying T6: BR. It makes me laugh that me, Derrick and Mike were able to win matches even through this was the first time playing the game. We def had a good time and the consensus was it was def worth the trip to Nashville.

I am looking forward to going back and bound, iSW peeps to Hell.

Matches: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7267EC05D87C29A6

Get Ready for the Next Battle

pP

P.S I did decent in the tournament. I did not go two and out and I won a lot of casuals with my Lee and caught people with Mist Trap which made me smile.

KOR: a retrospective (part four)

2009-02-20T15:22:00.000-06:00

If people do not know, I am a trekker, not a trekkie, a trekker. Calling a trekker a trekkie is like calling an Asian person oriental, it's an outdated term and some find it offensive. So now you reader is wondering what the heck does this have to do with King of the Ring? Well the very last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation tv series was called 'All Good Things...' basically a shortened version of 'all good things must come to an end' and that was what I had in mind for King of the Ring: Requiem. It was a good thing but it was time to wrap it up and call it quits.

From day one I designed it and promoted it to be the last one, from the picking of the name 'Requiem' (it was also picked as a tribute to Dean, who disappeared from the scene). When I made the Requiem trailers I wanted an almost end of days feel. The Evanescence trailer (included in part three) ended with the scene from the Matrix: Revolutions of Neo confronting Smith and saying 'It ends tonight'. To put it bluntly the fat lady was doing warm ups.

I posted it up on TZ, I made an FAQ and people like always were signing up. I was excited it looked like we would have a good turn out. It turned out I was right. On the day we had a record 13 people signed up. Now KOR had always gathered a big bunch of people but 13 was unheard of. It was a fusion of past, present and new KOR players. Representing the past was Erks, Andrew, Henry, SEP. The present was of course me, Mario, Ric, Yous, Tara, Tim, Hussam and Alex. The new blood was Michael Jackson aka Oak (refer to my intermission 1 video if you want to see him).

The tournament started on a sour note, some people were late and therefore the tournament did not start on time. The bracket too was a nightmare, due to the large amount of people. 13 people and each person need to play every other person? That is a lot of matches. I should have realized it then and there that it was just too many and made a cut off the first 10 people and the other 3 couldn't play but I did not wanted to spoil anyones chances of particpating in the last KOR so I decided to run with it. There is an old saying "the path to Hell is paved with good intentions".

Andrew, winner of the second KOR finally made an an apperance and wanted to play, however, due to work commitments, he wanted to play all his matches in a row. I saw no problem mainly because playing all your matches in a row is usually a hindence as opposed to a benefit (saiyuk and Danis Kool both played most of their matches in a row and complained that it was too much in the first KOR), Andrew also paid his money so he deserved to play. Andrew went on to win almost all of his matches except against Erks. So what could have happened was Andrew would have won KOR without some of the people even playing all their matches. That I admit would have sucked however it didn't happen like that. Erks beat him therefore there was still a chance for someone to draw with him and force the tournament into a tie breaker. Someone could also beat Erks and win all their matches and make it a three way tie. However intend of rising to a challenge, people seemed to lose interest in the tournament and behind the back bickering started. Coupled with a long tournament (4 hrs), most people left the tournament early and worst, upset. In the end, Erks won most of his matches except one against Michael Jackson (it still blows me away to this day) so Erks had to play a tie breaker with Andrew the next time we had a chance. KOR: Requiem was not over yet.

Now I am going to man up and say, yes the tournament was too long. Yes I should have made a cut off 10 players. I admitted that in my post tournament post and I will admit it again now, years later. I however will not admit that I did anything wrong by letting Andrew play his matches in a row, he paid his tournament fee, he obviously couldn't stay due to work. If anyone else asked me to play all their matches in a row then I would have let them because I was trying to make everyone happy. It was a tournament by us, for us.

However in the aftermath of Requiem, a dark cloud started to form and people decided to critique everything and anything about the tournament. Now for me, this was a slap in my face. I ran this tournament with help from others, with money from my own pocket, I did the promotion and built the name of KOR to the point where even people who didn't play in KOR were looking at it and saying that it looked fun and wish there was character tournament for their own main characters. So for some people to express their opinions on a public forum and not had the decency to talk to me about on the day (SEP I am looking at you) or in a private message I felt like I was being spitted on. I knew before I ran it that Requiem was going to be the last KOR tournament but this cemented it. I went out of my way to run a tournament and just have fun. This tournament was never for me, I won two and each time I accepted it with humility. I created KOR for the people and the four other near perfect KOR's wasn't good enough for them, they just wanted to bitch about the one 'bad' one.

I went on to say that I would never run a KOR ever again and I was surprised by the reaction from some people. Aken, a person whom I can't say was ever a good friend of mine said

"man u dont have to stop running KOR coz of this.....even tho I never enter KOR but I like how alot of ppl are in galaxy during the tourni during KOR... just dont give up man let just say I am one of the KOR fan"

LOL spelling errors and all. I was happy to see someone people appreciated the effort me and other put into it but I was done.

An ironic post script, a couple weeks later we were able to run the tie breaker match between Andrew and Erks to decide who won KOR: Requiem and it was

Good on you Turk :D and Crimson joined previous winners, that included me, Andrew and Kaz King. So for everyone who was bitching about Andrew having it in the bag or that Andrew and Erks were friends that they would never play each other, in the end there was a clear cut winner and it wasn't even Andrew.

What makes me laugh to this day is something Snap wrote, Snap always wanted to participate in KOR but never had the chance due to scheduling. He is a rather well know King player. What he said was

"I think KOR is a great idea too. I really regret not being able to come to any. They usually sound like alot of fun.If Phil is a little hesitant to host again, I'm sure someone else would be willing to step up"

The thing is, in the couple years I have been gone from the scene, no one has. No one wanted to put in the same amount of work, the money, the promoting that I did. I wonder why?

Part four I must admit was the hardest part to write mainly because the fact that the last KOR was not a success... it made noise but it wasn't the noise that I wanted. When I started writing this retrospective, I wanted people to see how something that started so well ended up the way it did. I wanted people to know what I thought about it and how I currently feel. One of the things that has happened to me since the end of KOR is that I have became more involved in religion. I am living a transformed life now and praise the Lord as my shepherd and my Savior. I look back now and I realize that my feelings can be summed up by the Lord's Prayer

"And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us".

Is is the past now and I am done looking back and now ready to move on. The last King Of the Ring did not ended well but I am ready to take it back to it's glorious days. With T6 released and heading to console, KOR will be back and like always I already have a name picked out for it.

"King Of the Ring: Redemption."

Intermission 2

2009-02-18T15:35:00.001-06:00

Never before seen footage post KOR: Return of the King.

My thoughts.

I recorded this and gave the interview hence the extreme close up and shaky cam.

pP

KOR: A retrospective (part three)

2009-02-18T13:41:00.000-06:00

(NOTE: this was originally intended to be the final part in my KOR: A Retrospective series. I have now decided to extended it by one more part)

The scene was set, I was coming back to Sydney after my first visit to the states and my future wife. It was also around this time Lord of the Rings fever was going on so I decided on a perfect name for our fourth KOR. Return of the King. LOL not trying to sound full of myself but I did actually win the last one so it felt appropriate. I would also be the first winner of KOR whom actually returned to defend his crown.

The prizes were offered up again and this time we had a decent turn-out. We had 8 people which include the usual bunch of Me, Mario, Yous and Tara and Tim. New to KOR were Hussam, Alex (Tim's little brother) and my protege Teddy. I also made sure this time around most of the matches were capped and I had access to it (thanks to my investment in 'Pinky' aka my digital camera) because I had definitely had something in the mind to do with the footage.

The eventually winner of the tournament was me and I was able to win it in the very first tie-breaker in KOR. It was the classic comeback story, Mario beat me in the round robin part of the tournament but he lost to Tim. I beat Tim therefore we both needed to play one more match and I won that match. It was a moment of triumph that I won two King Of the Rings back to back. More highlights was Alex the shining protege and at the tender age of 14 doing iSW combos on people, like WTF man. He also beat his older brother LOL.

I was also happy that we had enough footage that we could make a highlight reel. After the tournament and I uploaded all the matches (which can be seen at www.youtube.com/group/kingoftheringbish along with matches from most of the KOR tournaments) I then went to work on the highlight reel. The highlight reel (which was included in the first part of my retrospective) is a crowning achievement for me as well. Never had a song and theme for a video came to me so easily. It even gain props from people like Cyrax a renowned King player from Melbourne who said

"Nice, I like your style and the idea all together, maybe I can make it in there one day"

It was also during the KOR: ROTK highlight reel that I announced that we will be throwing one more KOR. It's name would be King of the Ring: Requiem and as the name implied it would be a farewell to KOR. I did not know at the time, how right I would be.

In the final part: KOR: Requiem and its aftermath.

Plus the future of KOR? Is there one?

Above is the first KOR: Requiem trailer. I am especially proud of this trailer, even through certain people didn't like it as much as the hip hop one. I picked the song because I love Evanescene and I like how I editted the song, anyone who has actually heard the song, know that I editted a whole part of the song out but to me it sounds so natural.

LOL a not so proud moment was when I messed up and on the scene where I put all the previous King of the Ring titles, I accidentally put Return of the King not once, not twice but three times. Oops.

An intermission

2009-02-18T13:30:00.001-06:00

Moments before King of the Ring: Return of the King kicked off, I decided to harass as many people as I could.

Classic moment: 'cha mon Michael... cha mon'

Ah the good ol' days in G Dub

pP

KOR: A retrospective (part two)

2009-02-10T14:31:00.000-06:00

'In the end, there can only be One'

LOL Highlander quote for the win. Post the first King Of the Ring, the buzz was pretty big. It went down well and it had a better showing then I ever expected. There was buzz about other character tournaments (none which ever came to fruiton). Because of the demand I said that I would run a second KOR and this one would be called King Of the Ring: Nemesis.

I posted on Tekken Zaibatsu and the hype was building up again. The prizes were back, the guaranteed $50, the trophy, the IC card and the right to be called 'The King'. This time we had a even bigger turnout. New people were added to the mix and ironically some people who attended the first one didn't come out, our reigning champ Kaz King included. However we still had 12 people attend this time. We had more then 70 matches played. It was crazy and I will say it would have been impossible for me to run without a little help from Tara. It was a testament to KOR with the diversity of people attending. Everyone wanted to get in on the action. We had Kei who was a Lee player, Spike who was a Lei player, Erks who was a Nina/ Anna player. King was not their main but they still came and played and enjoyed themselves.

In the end, the winner was Andrew (or as he is known as now, Lucky Strikes), who anyone in the Sydney Tekken community knows to be a beast. Props must be handed out to Mario (MMT) whom came in second and was the only person able to defeat Andrew and stopped him from being undefeated. Me, lol, I did worse then last time and came in equal sixth with Genxa. Definately not my proudest moment. I was happy through, KOR wasn't a flash in the pan tournament. It was a success and people were enjoying themselves. LOL even Hwan (quote from TZ)

"Thx to : Everyone at the KOR last night. Enjoyed a LOT! Special Thx to : Drago and Tara. thx again!don't know why, but somehow, i have this farking tendency to be SO excited! "

And he wasn't even playing in it!

I knew then, that we had to have another one.

This tournament also stood out for me because of the post dinner celebration. A lot of us got together and we had a ball at a chinese resturant, it was the best of times, I wish I still had that photo that was taken by that off kilter waiter. Also another personal highlight was it was the first tournament where my clan Pigeon came together and came out in force.

A couple months later, I made the announcment that again due to popular demand that I would be running a third KOR tournament. KOR: Vendetta would be it's name and this time I was determined to make my mark.

So by now you know the drill. I offered the prizes, set the date and once again the people came out. We had our usual suspects of me, Dean, Mario, Genxa and Tara but we also had the =NOT= guys come through as well in the form of Tim and Yous (Liger 7). Once again the tournament was run extremely well, it seems that me, Yous and Tara were getting the hang of these things. And for me, it was a moment of celebration. After placing 4th in one and 6th in another, I finally won a KOR. The trophy picture is actually the trophy I won. I was humble and thankful and I was just happy I was able to celebrate it with all my friends. This tournament also stands out because it was also the very first tournament in which Tara won a match and it was against Tim, LOL poor Tim. The dinner I remember wasn't as epic as the last one but we still went out and had a good time.

Whilst I was happy I won the dang thing I was also happy that an idea that me and Danis Kool had over a dinner session at Burger King had got to this point. It was soon that not only the Sydney people were talking about it but people outside of Sydney as well. People wanted KOR to be run whilst they were in town so they had a chance to prove themselves and win the crown. It was becoming a phenomeon and I was happy to be a part of it.

I knew for sure that we would have to have another one but it would have to wait because I was going overseas. I figured we would have it when I got back and I also had the perfect name for it picked out 'Return of the King'.

So concludes part 2.

In the final chapter, I will discuss Return of the King and Requiem and how something that felt so right, went so wrong.

Above is the trailer for KOR: Requiem. It was to build hype for it. I actually made two trailers, I made this one mainly because a good friend of mine, mention no names *cough* yous *cough* didn't like the 'emo rock' I used. I am also uploading it here also because Warner Music Group made a music claim on the youtube one and it annoys me that the video is now out there but not the way I intended it to be.

In closing... Fuck YT and WMG.

KOR: A retrospective (part one)

2009-02-06T10:01:00.000-06:00

Ahh the good ol' days. Above is the King Of the Ring: Return of the King highlight reel. I must admit I edited like a madman for this one and it came out really well. It was on youtube for the longest time but then it got music claimed and it was pulled off. I really like this video, so I originally just wanted to post it up here, where it can still be viewed and not 'violate anyones IP' (lol not bitter, not bitter at all). As I uploaded it tho, I got caught up and thought about KOR and it has now become this, a King Of the Ring retrospective, from the person who actually conceived and ran it.

Way back in 2006 (really? was it that long ago) when I started playing King in Tekken seriously, me and a fellow King player Danis Kool came upon a random idea whilst we sat at Burger King. We said to each other we should have a King and Armor King tournament and we should call it King of the Ring (after the wrestling event known by the same name).

I posted this idea up on Tekken Zaibatsu and it drummed up some interest. One of the earliest thing I remember doing for it was asking my future wife to design a banner for it. She did a great job I believe.

Anyhow on April 22nd, 2006, King Of the Ring went down. It was a success and 9 people attended. LOL even people who did not even play King as a main played in the tournament and the end result was a big victory for Kaz King (a Korean King player, maybe one of the first serious King players in Sydney at that time). I ended up coming 4th. No excuses I thought I was going to do a lot better. The tournament had some funny moments, the actual winner of the tournament actually didn't come for the tournament, he was actually there randomly playing and we pulled him in. I also remember yelling out the first person to get an iSW would get a dollar (which saiyuk won) and some very random matches. None of it was capped which we would remedy in future tournaments.

KOR stood out from other tournaments from the get-go. First it was purely a King or Armor King tournament, second, it was run round-robin style, so that everyone would actually have to play everyone, to really figured out who was the best at King/ AK, third there was an incentive cash prize that no other tournament in Sydney was offering at that time and fourth, the winner would get other prizes as well, that being a IC card and a converted KOR trophy. Now not blowing my own trumpet but the last three things were provided by me, the cash prize, the trophy the IC card I brought and paid for with my own money, because any money gained from tournament entry was actually put into the machines because it wasn't run on console. All in all, it went down well. So well in fact that there was talks about a second tournament. A second tournament called King Of the Ring: Nemesis.

In the second part, I continue to walk down memory lane and revist KOR: Nemesis and KOR: Vendetta

'The Mansion' 2nd teaser (with directors commentary)

2009-02-05T13:00:00.001-06:00

A teaser trailer for 'The Mansion' a novella included in my "Hauntings: An Anthology".

Video edited by Me for Apocryphic Visions.
Music: Slipping Away- Michael Andrews (Donnie Darko score)

Directors Commentary:
The scene in the hallway was filmed at the Gaylord Hotel in Nashville, the place is enormous
The picture of the door is actually from the original 'Mansion' teaser and is actually the door into my house.
The gun-shot sfx is taken from Eminem's 'Encore' unedited song where Em kills himself at the end.

Shadow- AudioVisual Poem

2009-02-04T15:28:00.001-06:00

Some poetry I wrote awhile back. Might do another one of these soon.

Hauntings: Casting- Homecoming

2009-02-03T15:30:00.001-06:00

It's a little trick I use when I write. I usually cast the actors/ actresses whom I would like to see play my characters if the story would be made into a film. Think of it like how a artist uses photos for reference. These are the people whom I had in mind as I wrote 'Homecoming'.

Jacque:

Jacque would be protrayed by Daniel Henney. His is a relatively unknown actor tho he does have a role in the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine playing Agent Zero. Daniel like Jacque is bi-racial.

Patricia:

I actually wrote Patricia with Bahar Soomekh in mind. She first caught my eye in

Saw III and Crash. Her exotic beauty and resume of films helped make my decision. She also guest starred in 'The Ghost Whisperer' in a story about an haunting. Everything is connected indeed.

Tim:

The final part of our love triangle, Tim would be protrayed by Tim Hendricks from the recent season of Miami Ink. He has the 'look' I felt that summed up Tim.

Jackie:

With Bahar's exotic looks, I felt I needed a person of similar looks who could be her mother and thanks to the film Crash I was able to find a perfect candidate. Marina Sirtis of Star Trek: The Next Generation actually played her mother in Crash so it felt like kismet. Marina's character in Star Trek was also a caring and considerate person and I felt Marina would be able to bring the motherly figure of Jackie alive.

Melissa:

Since I established that Jacque's sir-name was Jameson, I knew therefore by default his mother would be Asian. She plays a small role compared to the others but it's still a big role and as if by fate, one of my fave shows casted Tomlyn Tomita of Karate Kid II fame as Hiro's mother and I was like I found my Melissa. The fact she also turned in such a great performance made my choice easier as well.

Samantha:

Another one of Jac's lost chances at love, like Patricia, I actually had Samantha casted before I started writing her. I picked Maggie Grace from Tv's Lost and 'Taken'. I liked how she first came off as superficial on Lost but as the show continued she became a much deeper character. Plus it never hurts to have some eye candy LOL.

Hauntings: An Anthology featuring Homecoming

Everything is Connected... 2009

Open Your Ears

2009-01-23T17:39:00.001-06:00

One of the things that drives me nuts is the music industry. I mean for every Leona Lewis 'Spirit' we have a Paris Hilton album. It makes me even sadder that there are true artist out there whom are giving their all and it is going un-noticed. Case in point, Kiley Dean

I first heard of Kiley Dean back when she was signed to mega producer Timbaland's Beat Club label. I was shocked and pleasently surprised that this young girl had such a pair of pipes on her, it was after I heard her sang (and let me say that like they do in church, the gal can Sang) "Who Will I Run Too" (look it up, you will thank me later) that I became a bona-fide fan.

I started researching and looking for all the music she made. The end results of my search is a hidden gem by the name of 'Simple Girl' album (not to be confused with the actually Simple Girl song). The whole sorrid story of what happened after she created 'Simple Girl' is a story I wouldn't bother you with but needless to say, this whole album, not a demo, not an EP, a bonafide album with intro, outro and everything was shelved. To make matters worse, a couple months or years later, her label, Beat Club collapsed.

Since that happened, Kiley still makes music and is still looking for that one person to give her the one thing she deserves the most, a proper album release. To no avail. Simple Girl is almost 6 years old, maybe more and there was talk of an album called 'Changes' but it can not be brought in stores.

Timbaland continues to produce and awhile later he created Mosley Music Group and co-released his first bonafide success, Nelly Furtado's 'Loose'. Whilst Timbaland had success tho, producing and making major hits for people like Madonna, OneRepublic and Justin Timberlake, poor Kiley's invite to the party seemed to got lost in the mail. Now I'm not bitter but where was Kiley on his 'Shock Value' Lp? He had Keri Hilson (not hating, I got love for Keri) at least three times. Last time I heard Kiley and Tim are still cool, lol he threw her a bone and he let her ad-lib and sing back ground on Flo-Rida's 'Elevator' but his big album and Kiley was nowhere to be seen and worse, heard.

The main point of this blog is, I want you to give Kiley a shot. It won't hurt you to listen to one of her songs and you never know, you might like it. If you are already a Kiley fan, then kudos to you and please join me in promoting and making sure this hard working, well deserved artist gets her shot to live her dream. The song I have included below is called 'Convince Me' for a reason. I could have used "Who Will I Run To" or "As These Days Go By" or "Busy" but I decided this song sums up how Kiley feels been stuck in this limbo. When I realized it was no longer on Youtube for me to link to, I actually created a slideshow so I could use it. I want you to listen to her. Listen to the lyrics

"I'm a fighter, a leader, I'm a believer, I'll do it over again". It sums her up so well, she believes and I believe in her. Now open your ears and you'll believe too.

http://www.kileydean.com/

www.myspace.com/kileydean

An Introduction

2009-01-23T16:37:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my new blog. I have been keeping a semi-regular blog on myspace but I figured I might as well make it official and make a proper blog on blogger.

A couple pieces of info.

-I was born in South Vietnam (make sure you make the distinction LOL) but I was raised in Australia. Almost a year and a bit I moved to the US to be with my wife.

-I play video games socially. I pretty much play a little bit of everything except First Person Shooters (they make me dizzy) and Sports games (because I have no interest in sports). If I have one game I really like to play, it would be Tekken.

-I am happily married to the most wonderful person I know. She is my everything and my muse.

-I love to write and one day I would love to be a full time author. I have recently completed an anthology of short stories called 'Hauntings'. I am currently working on editing it and looking to getting it published. I also write casually as well, hence this blog.

-Music is probably my other biggest passion. I love most types of music, as long as it has some soul and good vocals, I can listen to it. My favorite artist is probably Kenna.

Well I will try to keep this as updated as I can.

Till next time

Peace

PP