Can't count on nobody for nothin' these days...

And by nobody and nothing, I am indeed referring to myself and my steadfast lies. Cause clearly, I ain't update a damn thing, and the video stuff didn't happen either.

But!

As usual, I am planning to come back, and say I'm going to do things, and likely fail at doing them, but with much gusto!

This time, my plan is to begin reviewing games again once I play one as it comes out, as opposed to reviewing a game long after it's past it's due date and such.

So yeah. That oughtta be fun. In theory.

So let's make with the relevant updates, and things that mattered to me, I suppose!

• Was gonna beat Dark Souls 2. Did not because Scholar of the First Sin got announced, and I want to play the more definitive version.
• Speaking of definitive versions, Devil may Cry has a definitive edition coming out, and now that time has passed, my hate has subsided, and they've chosen to include a lock-on function, I'm kinda inclined to consider giving it a shot. Admittedly, they made the idea way easier with the second DMC based announcement:
• Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition! For the PS4 and Xbox One! With a very teasing image and voice clip of my main homie Vergil! Dear god, the excitement.
• Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire was rather... Whelming. It did very little with the opportunity it had, and honestly, I think Nintendo kinda just phoned this one in, particularly compare to the phenominal Fire Red/Leaf Green or Heart Gold/Soul Silver. Not to say OR/AS is bad, just... It's nothing crazy.
• Winter-Een-Mas has come and gone. My goal was to beat 2 Final Fantasy games. I unfortunately failed. Poor time management lead to me making it to the end of the second game, but not quite finishing it in time. Much to my dismay. But I did get to go to:
• Distant Worlds, the Final Fantasy orchestral concert! It was great. And I met Nobuo Uematsu. So I am rather happy.
• Took a trip to MagFest in Maryland. Great convention, Met Smooth McGroove, chilled at a Death Battle panel, had a great time overall.
• Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is on the cusp of release, and it looks amazing. And a special edition New 3DS is confirmed to release here in America. My money...
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 has been out for some time... But I'm finally playing it!

That should cover general news type things. There are a few others (Got a Vita, started pushing through uncharted series, grabbed a PS4 and an X1) but they're less important.

And for some quickie reviews/FF series progress!

FFV: Everything I loved about FFIII, but with a better story, and far better characterization. 7/10

FFVI: The first FF in the series to convey its story and characters with such strength, despite its sprite-based graphics. By this point in time, the overarching story isn't massively original, but the fleshed out cast and cool scenes are much appreciated. 7.5/10

FFVIII: Squall is one of the most strongly developed characters, perhaps of all time, especially in the area of developing as the story goes along. Zell amuses me, Seifer has a cool coat. Laguna's kinda cool. The rest of the cast sucks, and the story was very meh and unnecessarily complicated after maybe halfway into the second disc. Junction system is fun, and Triple Triad is one of the most addicting games I've ever played. 6.5/10

FFIX: This game feels like what the first 3 Final Fantasies well and truly wanted to be, but couldn't because of technological restrictions. Fun, whimsical, but not particularly gripping. There was for sure a plight, but I didn't find myself feeling the weight of it, or caring about it until near the end of the game. 7/10

FFXIV (part 2): I'm at level 50 and playing the endgame content. At this point, I feel whatever MMO you play is sort of just a skin for the genre, there isn't a massive amount of differentiation, so it comes down to what aesthetic you like best. That said, I still love FFXIV, The references to the rest of the series don't stop, and I enjoy them in all of their forms. It's also a far more story driven MMO than I usually get my hands on, so that's fun. The downside to all of it is things like the finial fight in the game are restricted to 8 man parties, so if you want to enjoy the story and watch the cutscenes at your leisure, you're gonna want to do those dungeons with people who are willing to wait, which is uncommon this late in the game. It's mostly people doing speed-runs at this point. But a good time all the same. Main story was fun, and I beat it, so I'm at 11 FFs defeated so far. Feeling good. 3 to go. 8.5/10

After going through bits of VII again, I'm gonna amend that score to an 8.5, and I'm considering a 9, but I'm staying away from it, because fanboying is not how one should write reviews.


That covers everything for now. Gonna try and update more! Will talk about future plans soon. Don't quote me on that.

Video Stuff Review Thing!

So, it's about time I finally expand beyond game reviews. I couldn't decide if the next step was movies or TV. So I just decided video style things would just be mashed into one category.

Inventive! Ingenious!

Or just lazy.

All possible!

Anyway, I don't have a review system in place yet for this kind of thing, so I figure I'll just rant, and throw a score on the end, and everything will work out.

Good plan.

And just in time for me to get on reviewing the web series I've been anticipating to nearly the exclusion of all else; Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist.

Expect it soon!

More Poke-musings!

So, filler material until I finish the next review.

Within recent times, Nintendo was kind enough to finally grace me with the news of the remakes of my favorite Pokemon Generations: Gen III.

The ever wonderful Hoenn, home of Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald are set to be remade in glorious 3D in the forms of Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

My excite level is off the charts.

Anyway, shortly after the announcements, rumors and theories ran rampant, due to the new look presented for the game's mascots; Groudon and Kyogre, in addition to Nintendo's choice of words regarding the presentation of the remake, specifically: ""

My own particular points of interest lie less so in the choice of words for Nintendo, as I have no doubt, and as far as I am aware, it has been confirmed that this is a straightforward remake. Sure, there will be some minor differences and stuff, graphic bueno-ness and some new features, mayhaps some storyline changes, but in all, I imagine the core of the game will retain what I loved about Hoenn in the first place.

No, I'm interested in the new glowy designs for both Kyogre and Groudon. Aside from the new Tron-like lines carving huge swathes across both legendary poke's bodies, both Pokemon now seem to have symbols on their body representing Omega (Groudon) and Alpha (Kyogre). I really wanna know what kind of significance this has on the game itself. Are these things representative of new forms and powers? And if so, are they only for the legendaries? Or are they some new spin off of the Mega Evolution? And what does that mean for the ever-awesome third member of the legend trio, Rayquaza?

Or perhaps it's all just fun new designs for the covers? Who knows? All musings. Anywho, that's what's on my mind right now. That, and the ever-present spectre of Final Fantasy XV. It haunts my dreams.

But that's a tale for another time.

Yep.

Return of the Dragon!

Okie dokie. I clearly am the suck at keeping up with this thing. But I'm making yet another comeback. The idea this time is to just keep trying until I catch a rhythm. Any who, next up, super late, is Sonic Generations. Soon after, I plan to review the Souls series in order to prepare for Dark Souls 2.

Here's hoping I can stick to it!

Winter-Een-Mas results, and other stuff.

Okay. So, 1: I completed Dark Souls on the 7th day of the Winter-Een-Mas celebration. Success!

2: Got an AMV just waiting to be uploaded to youtube.

3: Working on a few top 10 lists to fill up the gaps between things like the lack of reviews.

Yep.

Guest Vid!

So, my bro John is gettin' into that online Street Fighter scene, (though he may lie to you and attempt to tell you otherwise. You ain't low John.)

He started posting replay vids, and the ending for this one was just lovely, so, with permission, a-posted it goes, right here on StuffMax.

El Link!

Side note, much respect to the Fei-Long. I shall love Ryu and Ken until the end of days, but maaaaaaaan, am I tired of fighting them. Dat variety makes the soul happy.

Yep.

Fight Vid courtesy of Johnanthony Gonzalez (sub to that youtube channel, sucka!)

Guest article!

Nintendo has been making some interesting moves, this console generation. And they are starting to seem kind of like bad ones, if their financial tidings are anything to go by.

My amigo, Kwan Smith-Holloway, whom I shall refer to as "Le Kwaaaaaan" wrote an opinion piece via social media.

I personally thought it deserved it's own article, and Le Kwaaaaaan, being the awesome dude he is, gave me permission to post it.

Enjoy!

"So it seems that Nintendo has fallen into a somewhat dire situation. As most of already knew, the Wii U hasn't been selling well at all, but it's actually really bad right now. CEO of Nintendo of America, Satoru Iwata revealed that their projected sales forecast for their fiscal year(which ends in March) was to sell 9 million Wii U's, yet that number has been slashed and they hope to sell 2.8 million Wii U's. Wow. They had to cut their numbers by more than two-thrids because the Wii U is doing so poorly. The questions that come to mind are: Why is the Wii U flopping? What will Nintendo do about it? Should we worry about Nintendo closing, or becoming a third party company?

There are many reason the Wii U isn't doing well. These are some of them: 1. The Wii U is a current-gen console, contrary to what Nintendo is portraying it as; a next-gen console. 2. The Wii U doesn't have many great games unless they're first party games( New Super Mario Bros U, Super Mario 3D Land, etc), and if it does, they're probably out on the PS3 or 360 and people are more likely to use those consoles for more popular games. Though in 2014 they have some first party titles that seem like they will bring in some good sales. 3. Third party game developers aren't particularly interested in developing for the Wii U because of the controller. When they make a game for PS3 or 360 they map it to a non touch screen controller, so porting their games to the Wii U required them to make a whole new touch screen adaptation for the game which is annoying for them.

As for what Nintendo will do about it, we won't know until we progress farther in the year of 2014. Hopefully they make good changes.

Should we worry about Nintendo becoming third party? Probably not, because this is Nintendo we're talking about, they will probably find a way to save themselves if not only by their first party titles. But we should note that for the last 3 years, Nintendo has been losing money every year, they haven't had overall gains in 3 years, which is bad for them. If they continue to just take losses year after year, who knows what might happen in the end. We don't want another Sega to happen.

Don't take this as me hating on Nintendo, I love nintendo, and hope things go well but this isn't looking too well for them right now."

Guest Article courtesy of the Ever-Excellent Kwan "K-Dub/Le Kwaaaaaan" Smith Holloway

"Le Kwaaaaaan" nickname courtesy of Sara "Homotastico/Mega-Cuteness" Rodriguez

"Homotastico" nickname courtesy of Johnanthony Gonzalez

"Mega-Cuteness" nickname courtesy of Orlando Alicea.

Much obliged guys.

Yep.