Guardiane's Blog

New Videos and long overdue posts...

2010-09-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

Wow, sorry everybody, I can't remember the last time I sat down and posted anything here. Lately, I've been able to post two different videos via Youtube:

GTA IV - Collage of Havoc

and

Worst Games Ever - Attack Animal Gakuen

The GTA (Grand Theft Auto) IV video is pretty much just gameplay footage between myself and my friend Joe (plus some other random people) goofing around. Joe had found some sort of hack or cheat that allows you to alter pretty much anything in the game like invincibility, any weapon you'd like, any vehicle, gravity alterations, etc. I was utilized the in game video recorder/editor. I threw together all the best bits into one big collage.

I had also used Fraps just to see what worked better...and to be honest, the in game recorder did, once you figured out how to use it correctly. It's pretty impressive, the default key to use the in game recorder is F2 and I figured the way it worked is that it would simply record the last few minutes of whatever you were doing but it doesn't work that way. Apparently, it starts recording from when you spawned and stops when you press stop...however, if you press stop AFTER you die and respawn, then it records only from when you respawned. To give you an idea of what I mean, say you spent 10 minutes doing stunts and in the end you die, if you don't press record before you respawn, then the game records absolutely nothing of what you were doing those last 10 minutes, you have to press record right as you die or while you're dying. I couldn't tell you how annoyed I was when I discovered this, I lost so much good footage because of this.

Fraps worked fine but the quality was dumbed down, it was a little choppy and for some reason I can never get Fraps to record the audio...it's always mute even though I select the proper audio channels...makes no sense.

The GTA IV in game editor is pretty good too, it's not too elaborate but it doesn't need to be. Most of the footage you see in the video was done with the in game editor. The whole video was compiled in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 though, I also put all the music and sound effects together via Premiere.

For those wondering, my in game name is NeoBahamut000 though I haven't played the game since making this video...just got bored of it but I'll still play from time to time.

As for the "Worst Games Ever" episode, I'm frequently being ranted at to bring out more episodes and really, I can't blame anybody. It takes months at a time now before I post anything since, again, I have no time. I like to put a lot of effort into my videos (ex. animations) so that can take a lot of time. I mean, a lot of the sprites you see me using to make the animations with I have to make myself, which means, taking screenshots, frame by frame, and then reanimating them...stuff like that takes forever, it's not hard just tedious. Some people suggested just bringing out standard, basic videos like I was originally doing when I first created the series (ex. the Transformers episode), they find it just as funny. It's not that they don't appreciate the hard work I put into the newer ones but they seem to want quantity rather than quality. So I figure, I'll bring them out more often but expect more dumbed downed basic episodes for awhile then.

This Japanese game "Attack Animal Gakuen" was just a random pick, to be honest. Yes, there are a lot worse games than this one but I couldn't help but laugh at the whole concept of this game, so I just picked it for the heck of it. I didn't do a voice over because it's not easy for me anymore...my daughter is always curious of what I'm doing (or she's sleeping) so by being angry, yelling or ranting (even though I'm acting...sort of) while making the audio review, she observes me and wonders what's going on. I honestly don't want her getting the wrong idea or even get into the bad habit of playing video games like I had done MY WHOLE LIFE. So what I do is wait for her to fall asleep...which is worse because then I can't make noise at all or she'll wake up. See my dilemma? So expect text only commentary for awhile.

I do get a lot of fan requests for games but they're always games that have been reviewed to death by every reviewer known to man kind. I like to pick the more obscure games that nobody has ever heard of, I figure that's more entertaining. But due to popular demand, the next game I will be reviewing is Superman 64.

Anyway, that's it for now. I have a lot of projects in mind but nothing started yet. If you get bored waiting for me to bring out something, then I suggest the following well known reviewers:

The Spoony Experiment
Angry Video Game Nerd
The Escapist - Zero Punctuation

There are more but the 3 above are my favorites. Oh and here is a picture of a Protoss from Starcraft II for no reason...latest favorite game...which I suck at. Maybe I'll do a review of this really quick...not a bad one.

New Worst Games Ever Skit

2009-10-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of editing a new "Worst Games Ever" episode. The footage is already completed it's just a matter of adding the title, adding an animation here and there and just putting it together.

It's going to be about "Action 52" for the SNES and Genesis...man oh man, what a pile of Hedden that game is.

What is "Hedden" you ask? Well, the term "Hedden" is generally used to describe something that's so incredibly large, that it can't be expressed in words...for example, you can't just say the Universe is "big" or "huge" because those words don't do it justice. I often use the word "Dynamo" to describe something that's really big but if you had to go beyond "Dynamo" then you'd say "Hedden". So I guess you could say the Universe is Hedden...but then again, Hedden is beyond comprehension...see, I can't even describe what Hedden really means, it's so HUGE!

Hedden can also be used to describe something you're disgusted with. For example, rather than call somebody a "smelly prick" you'd could just call them "a Hedden". It's a universal term, really.

Yeah that was completely off topic and pointless, wasn't it?

Anyway, the video will be done soon, I swear...otherwise, feel free to call me Hedden.

For no reason, here is a picture of me testing my webcam on MSN:

Another World & Out of this World Video

2009-10-01T11:54:00.001-07:00

It's about time I released a new video, eh?

Again, I can't apologize enough for these long delays. But once you get married, have a kid and work full time, you'll soon miss having free time but hey, it's worth it. I just hope my fans are still around to enjoy these videos...

This new skit is somewhat of a dedication to the "Another World" (also known as "Out of this World" in the US) video game series that was released for multiple video game systems back in the 90's. This game was first released for older computer systems but when I first played it, it was on the SNES.

I played this game to death, even though it was a very short game, the difficulty made it seem that much longer. For me, the graphics were something brand new and I had never seen anything like it. For kids nowadays, I'm sure they see this game graphics to be a blobby mess but back in the early 90's it was pretty amazing.

So if you haven't tried this game, even though it is a relic now, you should find it and give it a go. They recently re-released this game for Windows XP, check it out:

http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/page_reedition.htm

Again, this video I have released is a dedication to this game and all of the fond memories I have playing it as a kid. It starts off to be a video about the different ways you can die in the game but then spawns off to be something completely different and random, focusing primarily on the main character "Lester Knight Chaykin".

This video is the first part of who knows how many...I didn't want to upload it until I had it completely finished but seeing how it takes me 6 million years to release a single video, I might as well upload what I got now so my fans don't completely hate me.

Please leave some comments if you read this blog and don't feel that you're bugging me if you message me on Youtube asking me to hurry the heck up, it helps motivate and give me a reason to create more videos.

You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rey8oYk1alE

Danny Zzzz

2009-08-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

So just recently (August 15th), the wife and I go out on a date to Niagara Falls where we end up seeing a Hypnotist/Mentalist/Illusionist/Magician/Entertainer. That's right, he's all in one and he was well worth it to. His name is Danny Z and he's probably the most lively person you'll ever meet, no kidding.

I didn't know what to expect when going to his show, I mean, I've never been to a Hypnotist before. I used to think that Hypnotists were phony and simply paid people in the audience to act for them...but I soon realized I was dead wrong.

He started off his show rushing out onto the stage in a Frenzy, that's another thing that got me. When you look at his photos on his website and his ads, you'd think he was a very serious guy but he's quite the opposite. Don't take that wrong, he's very serious about what he does but he's very energetic and powerful about it. Because of his attitude, you really want to join in and participate.

Anyway, he started off his show doing some funky little tricks, ones that I still can't explain. He did everything from card tricks to illusions to what he calls "Hoaky Magic". This all led up to the main event which was the Hypnotizing.

He pulled about 14 volunteers up onto the stage to just sit and face the audience. He then would have you close your eyes while he attempted to put you in this trance (which I won't explain in detail) but it was interesting. At first, I didn't really try to do what he said to do...I wasn't sure if I was supposed to since I didn't volunteer. But eventually I joined in from the audience and started following the instructions (regarding the trance). While I was doing it, I had no idea it was working, I felt totally conscious...but when he made a specific sound, it ended up knocking me right out cold.

He even said from the start, he won't ask personal questions or do anything that would involve your personal life...but he did say he'd embarrass you lol. So everytime he knocked me out, he'd give instructions on what you'd do when you woke up. The first time he did this to me, I remember his words on what he asked me to do but it was only AFTER the show was done and I was out of the trance that I remember all of this...at the time, I remember him saying nothing until I woke up...does that make sense? Even though I woke up, I wasn't out of the trance until the end of the show.

Anyway, like I was saying, the first time he knocked me out, he apparently convinced me that when I woke up, I'd find my current seat the most uncomfortable seat that ever existed. In fact, I'd hate the seat so much that I'd jump up yelling "Danny Z, these seats are horrible!". So what did I do? Exactly that. I remember being pretty upset too and I didn't feel the slightest bit embarrassed after I yelled out either. That's when he pulled me on stage to a more "comfortable" seat, joining the rest of the Hypnotized volunteers.

From there we all did a series of silly things like pretend we were James Bond (secret agents), think we were the sexiest people in the room, move in slow motion, and even play with our butts. During this entire session, I not once felt ridiculous or embarrassed. I remember walking off stage and the first thing I wondered was why my wife had moved from the back row to the front row of seats...not at all wondered why I was walking off stage or what I just did.

I remember it all clearly now that I've watched the video and even now I don't feel stupid. When I first started telling people what I did, I felt almost offended when they laughed at me. Not because they laughed at the fact that I made an ass of myself but I felt as if they were insulting a profession of mine...I was taking it rather seriously at first for some reason. Anyway, I can laugh at it now, not sure why I was uptight earlier. Maybe the effects were still wearing off?

To get a better idea of what happened, have a look at this Youtube video I put together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-hOXThSQ8

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I know a lot of people cannot be hypnotized, I'm surprised that I could. It's too bad too, it was a lot of fun in a weird way.

Be sure to check out Danny Z's website and go see him if he happens to be in your area or if you're in the Niagara Region. We had a great time, for sure.

www.dannyzzzz.com

Long time no Post...

2009-08-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Wow, sorry guys, I haven't posted anything in a long time.

My in-laws came down from India to visit us for the last month and a half or so, so that kept me quite busy amongst other things. I'll try and get back on top of things soon.

I'm still working on videos but now I'm doing several at once (not that ONE video was time consuming enough)...the Out of this World project has been put on hold while I work on a Title Segment for my buddy Sarkis and is video game reviews. The segment isn't overly complicated but I just don't have the time to do anything anymore...not even play games.

I'll eventually get around to doing something...

I've been playing some Left 4 Dead lately, it is or was the new craz for my group of friends. Yes, I know the game is old now but we just started getting into it and already it's getting repetitive lol. I still really enjoy the game but a lot of my other friends are done with it.

Maybe I'll take some in game footage for those of you that are not aware of the game...or just Youtube it, there is all sorts of footage and spin-off's of this game.

Some of my favorite vids are:

What happens when Francis gets his Pills
Left 4 Speed
Left 4 LOL

Tools I use for Editing - Part 4

2009-05-26T11:04:00.001-07:00

Cool Edit Pro 2.0 - Audio Editing Software

This application is no longer called "Cool Edit Pro" due to the fact that Adobe had bought them out. It's now called "Adobe Audition":

http://www.adobe.com/special/products/audition/syntrillium.html

But rather than move on to the new version, I stick with the old only because it works and I see no reason to move on (yet).

I perform all my audio editing with this application (except for minor changes like volume increases/decreases). But you probably won't notice anything exceptional in any of my videos that makes you wonder "How did he do that?!". I'm not really any audio pro by any means but this application does everything I need it to do.

One example would be in one of my old "Jeff's Work" videos you'll find on my Youtube page. There were a couple segments where I was talking with client's over the phone and whenever the client was talking, I made it sound like you were hearing them through a phone. For the longest time I couldn't find an application that could convert the audio clip to make it sound like that but this app can. Again, it's a simple conversion/feature but it can do all sorts of things like that.

I also use it to convert .wav files into .mp3's and vice-versa. Sometimes Premiere will have a difficult time with some formats so this tool can also convert strange foreign file types (like .vox) to something that makes sense (like an .mp3 or .wav, etc.).

There isn't much else to say about this program, it's pretty simplistic (for what I use it for). I'm sure you can do a lot of mixing and music creation with it too but I never explored that.

This software goes for about $349 now...not cheap. But go here for a list of free software:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_audio_software

Also, check out Youtube for some cool examples of what this software can do:

Cool Edit Pro 2 Clear Vocals *Part 1*
Cool Edit Pro 2.0 Tutorial: How to Use CEP2 as a MIXER
Cool Edit Pro dubbing tutorial
"Cool It Man - part I" - on Cool Edit Pro 2.0

Resident Evil - Original Playstation Version

2009-05-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

I remember when I first played this game for the Playstation back in 1996. I was amazed by the graphics and "live action" videos. The music was eerie, the gameplay style was different for me back then and I've never really played a horror game before, it was great. But whenever somebody mentions this game, I can't help but think of the terrible acting first...

In the original PS1 version of the game, they introduced "live action video" using real actors which was something new for video games at the time. It all appeared to have been filmed in some foreign country or I can only assume this due to the fact that all the voices appear to be dubbed over. Regardless of the voice dubbing, this is the worst acting I've ever seen and that's what makes it so great. Also, the fact that they use fake Styrofoam looking dogs to attack somebody makes it supreme. To show you exactly what I mean, have a look at the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw5sQn5Cviw

Now after watching that, did you not laugh your ass off? If you didn't, that's fine but you still must have found the acting absolutely horrendous. I mean, look at the expression "Joesph" gives when he finds a severed hand (below).

Okay, maybe I can buy the expression but what about the noise he makes? Shouldn't it be more of a constant yell like "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"? It wasn't just the live action video acting that was bad either, the in-game voice acting was just as bad. Have a look at this small video below as an example:

Anyway, acting aside, the game was great for it's time. It was one of the first 3rd person shooter games I've ever played and it scared the heck out of me too...or should I say "startled" the heck out of me. The enemies/monsters themselves didn't freak me out so much by their appearence but either how they were introduced or suddenly appeared out of no where sometimes that got me.

I guess after looking at the "Cerberus" above, you'd wonder how an image like that wouldn't freak me out. Well, we're talking about the PS1 version of this game. At the time, the PS1 graphics were excellent but in today's standards, it doesn't look so great anymore. This game has been remade for the Nintendo Gamecube (next gen console of the time) where the game received a complete overhaul and the enemies looked more like that Cerberus above. But if you compare that to the PS1 version of the Cerberus, you get a polygonal mess. If you really want to know what I mean, watch some gameplay of the PS1 version below:

Resident evil (PS1) walkthrough - Cerberus

Now have a look at the Gamecube version below:

Resident Evil Remake Trailer 1 (GameCube)

The story wasn't so bad either if you could look past the bad acting. The mansion they were in was completely unbelievable to me...why would they complete such a stupid puzzled mansion? For example, there is a scene were you have to play the piano to open up a secret passage in the wall. In the secret room you find, there is a gold shield imbedded in some sort of statue. When you remove the shield, the door closes behind you and there is no escape until you put the shield back in. In order to keep the gold shield (used to unlock another secret) you must find an indentical wooden shield and replace it with the gold shield...blah blah anyway, my point is, why would anyone construct such a stupid mansion lol. I know it's a game and it's not supposed to come off realistic but still.

This game gives a pretty good explanation as to how Zombies came into existance. Well, every movie or game usually has their own explanation but I like this one the most. A pharmaceutical company called "Umbrella" tried to create a drug that could perfect a human being but instead tranforms them into a retarded zombie. That's the ultra short version of the story, check out Wikipedia for a full one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_(video_game).

I can't tell you how many times I played this game over until I got to the point where I got the infinite ammo rocket launcher...at least I think it had infinite ammo. If you enjoy 3rd person shooter horror and don't mind retro games then give this one a try. It may be hard to find for the PS1 nowadays but hey try looking online...they got everything there ;)

Tools I use for Editing - Part 3

2009-05-19T05:28:00.001-07:00

Next I'll briefly talk about Fraps.

Fraps is a utility designed to capture video of whatever application you're running at the time. People, like myself, tend to use this application to obtain gameplay footage from PC games or emulators. But it can also be used to record video from Windows Media Player (say you need a scene from a movie, etc.).

Unfortunately, this utility doesn't work with every application or game. I don't know what triggers this utility to work because some emulators or games that I play don't want to work with Fraps. If you press the "record" button, nothing happens...it's weird. But for a backup, I end up using Camtasia for video capture.

Fraps also isn't free but it's not super costly either ($37). Actually, there is a free version but you can only record 60 seconds tops. You should have a decent computer to run this utility as well. I used to run this on a P4, 2.4GHZ with 1GB of RAM and it barely worked. Sure, I could obtain low quality video but that was it. You're better off having something with multiple processors, a decent amount of harddrive space and at least 2GB of RAM...maybe I'm over exaggerating but that doesn't hurt.

In most of my videos where there is gameplay footage, I used Fraps to obtain it. Strange thing is, now that I have a new computer, I find that I must have Fraps set to 60fps in order for the video capture not to chop out. On my old computer I absolutely had to set it at 29.97fps, otherwise if I set it to anything higher, it would chop out...again, it's weird.

Premiere also can have difficulties with the Fraps video codec but in that case, I'll use Virtualdub to convert it to raw video first then import it to Premiere.

Fraps is easy and straight forward to use if you can get it to work properly. You may have to play around with the fps settings until you find one that your system can handle. All you really have to do is press F9 (my default) to start recording and press F9 again to stop. It's that easy. It can also capture screen shots.

So if you like to record yourself playing games for any which reason, give Fraps a try. I see people use it mostly for speed runs.

Tools I use for Editing - Part 2

2009-05-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

One of my other favorite tools to use is Adobe Flash. It's a tool designed for animation and I do a little bit of animation (I'm still learning how to use the thing).

Actually, I do most of my animation in Premiere (since I'm more familiar with it) but I'm sure I could save a lot of time if I just learned how to do it in Flash. I mostly create animated GIFS in Flash and export them to Premiere to complete the whole animation. I don't actually make animated "GIFS", more like animated "AVI's". With AVI's I have more control over the animation. The only drawback is that with AVI's, the animation will only repeat itself as many times as I tell it to and with GIF's they'll endlessly loop.

To give you an example of what I mean, lets say I need an animation of Lester running. I'll take footage of the game, import it into Premiere, export frame by frame the entire sequence of Lester running, import each frame into Paintshop Pro and cut out Lester from each frame. I'll then take the cut outs and paste them onto transparent backgrounds so I can import them into Flash.

In Flash is where I'll create the animation sequence of Lester running. When complete, I can paste Lester on any background in any scene I want. I can choose to export him as a GIF where he'll endlessly run or I can export him as an AVI but he'll only run for as many frames as I choose to. But again with AVI's, I have more customization in Premiere like to slow down or increase the frame rate without having to manually adjust it in Flash and re-exporting again. It's also easier to crop, say I have a run and jump sequence animation. If I decide later on that I just want him running and not jumping, I can crop it out if it were an AVI but not when it's a GIF. I hope that makes sense.

I used to be a lot better with Flash when Macromedia owned it but now that Adobe has taken over, it has a different feel and the controls are a little different so I forget how to do a lot of things. So again, even though it takes longer, I prefer to do most of my animation in Premiere itself.

Flash doesn't have nearly as many bugs or problems like Premiere does (at least it doesn't for me). I never had it crash yet...but dealing with video is more complicated than making simple animations (that's all I do with Flash).

Flash is also expensive but worth it if you use it a lot. If you want an alternative, cheaper animation program...well, I'm not really familiar with any other programs lol but here is a list I found that may help you. My friend Miles plays around with Blender and he's pretty good at it.

The New Star Trek Movie

2009-05-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

SPOILER ALERT!!!

If you plan on seeing the movie and don't want to know what's going to happen, then don't read any further!

You're still here? Don't say I didn't warn you.

So I went to see the new Star Trek movie on Monday...and like with any new movie, I never get my hopes up. I go in the theater with the expectation that the movie will be mediocre at best (they usually are nowadays). But when I came out of the theater for this one, I was just pissed off.

Where do I start? Well, besides the fact that I went in there with the impression that this movie would be "ok", I also went in there thinking that the movie would be about how Kirk met Spock...and it is about that...but in an ALTERNATE TIME LINE. What is this crap? I don't want a different time line, I want the ORIGINAL time line and I want to know how Kirk really met Spock! But no, like all new movies nowadays, lets make it "different" and make it "new". Why can't people just leave well enough alone...all they had to do was take an already existing storyline and work with it but instead lets scrap the whole idea and start over...why?? What a disappointment!

Don't think that's the only thing wrong with it, there is a lot more.

The entire original Star Trek cast of characters is there (but all played by different younger actors, of course). We have Kirk, Spock, Bones, Sulu, Chekov, Uhura, Scotty, Captain Pike, you name it...actually, the only thing I really liked about the movie were the actors. They did a very good job representing the original Star Trek crew, they really made me believe they were the younger versions of those characters. But there was a flaw with Uhura's and Spock's characters...right away, for the people that saw this movie already, you know what I'm about to say.

Lets go back to the original series from the 60's. Remember Spock and Uhura? Remember what they were like? Remember when they made out and fell in love with one another? What do you mean you don't remember when they made out and fell in love?? Well guess what, I DON'T REMEMBER THAT EITHER!

That's right Spock and Uhura are a couple in this movie...it's the most RIDICULOUS thing you've ever seen and it happens OUT OF NO WHERE. For no reason, Uhura has a hard on for Spock and wants to bang him every chance she can get. Seriously, every time Spock enters the bridge, it does a close up of Uhura and her desperate, anxious face and when Vulcan gets destroyed (don't get me started on that) the first thing she does is pin him in the elevator and offer him sex (without directly saying it...but she didn't need to, holy crap). Spock shoots her down though LOL.

The relationship they have, again, happens out of no where. I was left asking, "Where is this coming from, why is this happening?" every time they locked tongues. It was stupid...I mean, it wasn't a funny stupid, it was just plain f'in STUPID. Who thought up this absurd idea?? My god, it makes more sense to have Kirk gay for Spock, really, it does. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they end up doing in the sequel just to top it off.

Another thing that got me were the significant amount of coincidences. I found myself saying "whoa, that's good timing" or "whoa, that's awfully convenient" every 10 minutes. What do I mean? Well, for example, at some point in the movie, Spock is assuming command of the Enterprise when Captain Pike is kidnapped by Romulans. When Spock gets pissed at Kirk in one part of the movie, he orders Kirk to be ejected from the ship and abandoned on some barren ice planet (that idea itself was completely overboard and didn't suit Spock's character at all).

So after a pointless, waste of time scene of Kirk running from stupid snow beasts, he ends up being saved from them by the original future time line Spock (Leonard Nemoy). Okay...what are the chances that the future Spock just so happens to be there on that very same barren planet in the middle of nowhere! I mean, I believe in coincidences but that was just frigin stupid. I mean, it wasn't a planned strategy to abandon Kirk, it was completely random and they ejected him to whatever planet was nearest to the Enterprise at that time. Go figure that the future Spock was abandoned there as well earlier in the movie, same exact location on the planet and all! Too convenient.

Oh and that's not all, guess who was also there waiting on the same planet? Scotty! Yes, for no reason, Scotty was also abandoned on that very same planet! OMG, how much farther can this be taken? Could this get worse? Oh yes, it most certainly can.

So future Spock and young Kirk meet up with young Scotty somehow. Spock just so happens to remember a transwarp transporter theory that Scotty from the future created. So Spock takes that theory and magically completes it with predated, ancient technology! No, sorry, are we trying at all here to make this realistic? I know it's Star Trek and anything is possible but c'mon, this is too much. So they use this super future technology with ancient equipment and transwarp beam themselves to a distant Enterprise that's in warp at the time (never heard of being done before in any Star Trek show or movie). Also, Scotty comes off as an annoying douche...I guess he always was.

Oh did I mention that the Captain Pike from this new time line gives Kirk (an ensign or whatever at the time) a 1st officer rank out of no where for no reason? This is before Pike is kidnapped of course...anyway, before Kirk and Scotty beam to the Enterprise, future Spock tells Kirk, in order to assume command of the Enterprise, he'll need to find a way to deliberately piss off his younger self to draw out his emotion and make it look like he's taking this situation (Vulcan being destroyed and what not) way too personally and unnecessarily endangering the crew.

So right away, Kirk runs to the bridge, hurts Spock's feelings in the most cruel way (nobody seems to have a problem with it) and naturally Spock beats the shit out of Kirk. Somehow, this makes Spock unfit for command and Kirk assumes command himself...umm, I don't know about you but if I were one of the crew members and I just witnessed this, I'd think this was some sort of scheme or scandal to take control of the ship (which is was but it shouldn't have been deliberately exposed like that).

I mean, here is a guy we just abandoned on some distant ice planet returning to the ship out of no where, racing to the bridge and deliberately upsets the captain for no reason and then takes control of the ship...wow umm, why are they allowing that? I mean Spock has every right to get upset, his home world was just destroyed and Kirk is throwing that in his face!

The Starships and effects in this movie are great, I won't deny that. I don't like the way they altered the look of the Enterprise (it has the same overall look but the fine detail is different), they could have easily taken the Enterprise from the original series and just bring it up to today's standards. What I mean by that is rather than have that budget 60's look, give it that 2009 look, you know? Some people would say that's what they were trying to do but I don't see it that way.

The scenes with young Kirk being a rebel and what not are believable but the part where he drives a car off a cliff was unnecessary and pointless. Also, what's with the super campaigning of advertisements in this movie? I thought in the future that money wasn't existent so why would there still be companies out there selling products (Budweiser, Nokia, etc.) Not to mention that these companies would have been completely obliterated during World War III. Anyway...this stuff is irrelevant.

There were times when I thought they were trying too hard to make it funny and that was unnecessary too. Like when Kirk's hands swell because of Bones injecting something into him (I forget what). He had super retarded swelled looking hands and it just didn't make sense to have that kind of comedy in this movie.

Personally, if you're a mediocre Star Trek fan or wasn't even a fan at all, then you will probably like this movie. If you're a hardcore fan, you're probably going to exploit its flaws and nit pick like I do.

Overall, this movie wasn't "bad". I'm just too damned picky and was expecting a completely different film. The actors were good, the effects were good, the storyline was cheesy but it was alright. It got the point across and gave you an idea of what their lives must have been like when they first joined Starfleet.

If they had just left it so that it told the original story of how Kirk met Spock (no alternate timeline crap), I would have loved it.

So overall I give it 3 stars...to be fair
But my personal opinion - 1 star...to be honest

Where not to Sneeze

2009-05-12T15:36:00.000-07:00

We have this silly Public Health and Safety ad hanging up in our office at work (you know, the kind that tell you how to wash your hands and to flush the toilet when you're done and how to wipe you butt, etc.) This one particular ad just kept standing out every time I walked by it. It's trying to tell you where not to sneeze (not on your hand but on your sleeve), which makes sense. But the woman in the ad doesn't look like she's sneezing but rather eating her sleeve.

So for no reason today, I took down the ad, scanned it to myself at home and edited it.

I don't know why I've done this but I just had to. I so much want to post it at work to replace the original one but I don't want to get fired. XD

Tools I use for Editing

2009-05-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a post idea I should have thought of sooner, I have so many people asking me what tools I use to make my videos so why not make a blog of it?

There are plenty of tools I use and I'll provide a list below. Following the list there will be an explanation of the tool and what I use it for:

Adobe Premiere Pro CS3
Adobe Flash CS3
Fraps 2.7.2
Cool Edit Pro 2.0
Paint Shop Pro 7
Camtasia Studio 6
VirtualDubMod 1.6.0.0 Surround
Xilisoft Video Converter 3

Those are the main tools I use to create videos. I'll do another post about the Emulators I use for gaming later. So lets start with Premiere...

Adobe Premiere Pro is an excellent tool for editing video...if you can afford the $800 cost and have a powerful enough machine to handle it. Since I use the tool so often, the $800 seems pretty much worth it but that's still a huge chunk of cash. The biggest issue I have is the constant crashing...it almost seems random. Most of the time it works but when it comes to Exporting the video, that's when I have glitches.

When using any video editing program, always be sure to import video RAW and not compressed with DIVX or something else. See, I usually can't be bothered to use RAW video and that's why it crashes when exporting (most of the time). I can't tell you how frustrating it is to spend days working on a video to get stuck at the very end when you're trying to export it and it keeps crashing.

Anyway, enough bad mouthing Premiere, it's actually a really good program, why else would I keep using it? I do most if not all my video editing here, even the animations (for the most part).

Above is a screen shot of the "Another World" video I'm working on. As you can see, it looks like a jumbled mess. The bottom half of the screen shot is all the spliced audio and video. The top half are preview windows and to the left of the preview windows are all my uploaded/imported files. It's actually much easier than it looks. Fortunately, a friend of mine (Miles) got me into using this program, he started teaching me and from there I taught myself. Of course, there are a lot of online tutorials on Youtube itself that can show you how to use Premiere.

You're better off getting this program on a MAC, I hear it's much more stable there. On my old machine, this program didn't run so well, you need a good processor, lots of RAM, lots and lots of hard drive space because believe me, when you start using RAW video, you hard drive space runs out fast. I have over 1TB of space so I'm all set.

There are other alternatives like "Vegas Video" or "Final Cut Pro" but these are more high end stuff. For cheap or free stuff, there is Windows Movie Maker or Virtualdub but those are more basic. Check out this site for a list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_editing_software

This post was just to give you an idea of what video editing program I use, this wasn't meant to be a tutorial by any means. If anyone ever wants any suggestions on how to do some of the things that I do, just comment on this post or message me on Youtube.

Next post I'll talk about some of the other programs I use.

New Game Review - Bigs Rigs

2009-05-09T14:32:00.001-07:00

Well, it has been awhile but I finally posted something new on Youtube. It's a small game review of the game "Big Rigs - Over the Road Racing" for the PC.

Now I know what you're thinking, what about this "Another World" video I was working on? Yes, I'm still working on it but I haven't posted anything in such a long time so I decided to take a video that I had done a long time ago and post it. I did the "Big Rigs" review back around the time when I created the "One Month Off" video. The only reason I didn't post it earlier is that I wanted to do a lot more with it, it's just so bland and boring the way it is now. But I feel that it's better than nothing and I'm sure any fans that I have are probably pissed off that I'm taking so long. I wanted to include some short animations and make it more presentable but maybe that's my problem...I waste so much time trying to make it "neat" that it takes me a million years just to post a video.

What do you guys think? Should I take the time to add little animations or do whatever it is that I do to each video to make it more entertaining? Or should I just do a simple review and post as is? Videos would be posted a lot more often if I left them "as is"...but I have more fun (in the long run) adding music and animation, etc.

Anyway, you may want to watch the video first before reading further, just so you have a better understanding of what I'm about to say. Big Rigs is a terrible, terrible racing game. I mean, you'll notice that no effort was put into making this game. The designers just slapped whatever they could together as fast as they could and ended up with this mess. When you first start the game you get a simple title screen.

I have no complaints about this title screen except for the fact that there is no intro or music. How many games have you played where there was no music or intro to a title screen? Anyway, lets get to the actual game. When you select a "custom race" you get the choice of 4 trucks to choose from....OH MY, 4 whole trucks??!! What a selection!

The graphics appear to be pretty decent here so right away you get the feeling that maybe this game won't be so bad. It's funny that out of the 4 trucks to choose from, they all look cool except for the final 4th truck...

What is this? Super foreign European truck? Why is it called "Sunrise"? Sad truck...so that's the one I choose of course. After your selection you then get to choose from 5 whole maps...

They each have clever names like "Devil Passage" and "Devil Passage 2", "Small Town Road"...of all places you could race, why would you pick a "Small Town Road"? Hmm, "Devil's Passage" sounds cool but "Small Town Road" sounds way cooler! I ended up choosing "Nightride".

So after choosing your vehicle and map, above is the first screen you'll see after it finishes loading. Right off the bat, I can see 3 things wrong (if not more).

What's going on here? They couldn't take the time to make sure the font didn't stick out of the box? How complicated is that? Is it too time consuming to fix this stupid mistake?

What's with the rear lights? How many trucks do you see that have their rear lights floating in the middle of the outside doors? Plus, the further you play into the game, you'll notice the lights don't keep their place...

What are these numbers? Some sort of code they forgot to hide? Why?

While driving, you'll notice that you can pretty much drive through any and every little damned thing. I drive through this building with no effort what so ever. I don't even slow down...there isn't one object in this game you can't drive through.

Even my opponents aren't an obstacle! What racing game have you ever played where you could drive through your opponent (unless it was a ridiculous cheat code or something)?

See me driving up this hill? Yeah, look how steep that is? Do you really think a truck of this size could effortlessly drive up this cliff?? NO but in this game, anything goes. Again, there is no effort to driving up this cliff, I don't slow down one bit like there is no sense of physics on this planet.

There is that rear light problem I was talking about earlier . Look at my angle! I'm not even tipping! A normal truck would tip right over from this but no, I'm glued to the ground.

What's happening here? I don't know, the ground just disappeared.

Look at this! I drove right off the map, there are no boundries. I'm driving on a black sky. Why?

Geez, were these guys rushed to make this game or what? Did they not realize that perhaps we can rent games and check for reviews nowadays? Maybe they did this on purpose as a joke, that would make more sense. People are buying it just for a good laugh.

How many speedometers do you see that give you a "-" or a negative aspect when driving in reverse?

Look at this sadness, I'm going faster backward then I ever could forward. I'm going 400 Mph backward! On top of that, when I hold "left" on the keyboard, I spin out of control, faster than the speed of light it looks like.

2000 MPH backward, spinning out of control, the sound this truck is making at this point is ear piercing, what is this garbage? Oh and did I mention that when you let go of the controls and stop, you literally "stop" on a dime. Really...you just stop dead in your tracks after going 2000 Mph.

So here is what I learned from this game. Magic trucks on Earth named "Thunderbull" can drive through any object imaginable. It can defy all logic and reason by driving up the steepest cliffs with no effort at all. It can drive faster backward than forward and there is no limit to the speed it can achieve. You can drive off the planet into Limbo and stop at the speed of light.

I refuse to believe that this game was an accident. This mistake was deliberate because they knew that people would rush to by the game based on the fact that it sucked so bad. People would find it so hard to believe that the reviews they're watching on Youtube about this game are real that they'd go buy it for themselves just to be sure.

My rating: -2000 Stars backward. I give it an "F" for sucks. Are the game designers still alive? They shouldn't be.

Another World Video

2009-05-03T05:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's taking so long to bring out my latest video, I haven't had any time to work on it (again). Sadly, as it is right now, it's only 5 minutes long :\

One of the main reasons it takes so long to bring one out is due to the animations I create. For example, I couldn't find any game sprites for "Another World" or "Out of this World" to use for the animations so I had to create my own sprites. How do I do that? Well, lets say I need to make an animation of Lester running. I record a segment of him running in the game (by using Fraps of Camtasia), import that segment to Premiere and export frame by frame of him running. With each frame I cut out Lester by carefully using Paint Shop Pro's "Magic Wand tool" (that's what it's called) and selecting each and every single pixel (takes awhile). I then paste the cut out Lesters onto transparent backgrounds and import each picture to Adobe Flash. From there I animate the running sequence and export it as an AVI rather than a GIF (that way I can have more control over it...long story). Then I can export it to my project in Premiere and have him run on any type of scene I create.

I've been doing this with almost every character in Another World and it's very tedious work...hopefully this will all pay off and you guys will enjoy it.

I'll probably upload these sprites to some websites (like The ShyGuy Kingdom) so nobody else ever has to spend their time doing this.

Anyway, sorry again for the delay and I hope to have it done sometime soon.

Silent Hill Games

2009-04-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

For the heck of it, I've recently been watching a bunch of walkthroughs of the Silent Hill series. A special thanks goes to Louischou from Youtube for supplying these videos.

I was a huge fan of the Silent Hill games, probably because they all scare the sh*t outta me. These are probably the most demented games I've ever played, they don't make a whole lot of sense. I remember when I first played the original Silent Hill one for the Playstation (PS1)...the game starts with you waking up after a car accident to notice your daughter is missing. The town you're in is completely covered in fog and you can't see anything in front of your face...on top of it, it's snowing during the wrong season. In search of your daughter, you find clues which lead you to an alleyway. As you progress, you find odd objects laying throughout, like hospital stretchers and wheelchairs...and blood. The deeper you go, the more morbid it gets and the darker it gets too (literally)...so dark in fact that you can't see anything. Eventually you reach a dead end and find a massacred corpse hanging on hooks...suddenly an air raid siren goes off in the distance and these little mutated midgets stab you to death...

Yeah, that's how the games starts off, sounds very joyous doesn't it? Makes you wonder why the hell I like these games. I honesty can't say why...perhaps it's the fear that keeps me wanting more...but then again, you wouldn't catch me playing these games alone in the dark, screw that. These are the types of games you play with friends, like you're watching a movie. You keep playing to unravel the mystery as to what the hell is wrong with that town and what happened to your daughter...this was one of those games I played to death until I got every single ending (except the UFO ending, I never knew about that).

I never really got into Silent Hill 2, not sure why so I don't have much to say about that.

Silent Hill 3 was good, it had to do with the daughter (Heather Mason) of the guy from part 1 (Harry Mason). I don't remember too much about this except that I was annoyed when you discover that Harry Mason is murdered...yeah, the guy who survived the hell of Silent Hill 1 just ends up dead for no reason in part 3...seems so meaningless. It was a good freaky game though.

Silent Hill 4 was one of my favourites...it kind of trailed off from the story lines of 1-3 but it was just as scary if not more. It's about a guy (Henry Townshend) who wakes up one morning in his apartment to discover that he's locked inside with no way out. If he screams or tries to smash the walls or door, nobody hears it. If he tries to break the window, nothing happens. His phone is dead, his TV is dead and his radio doesn't work. Wondering what the hell is going on, he eventually hears a smash in his bathroom...he enters to discover a never ending man sized hole in the wall...so what does he do? He goes inside...what choice does he have?

The longer he stays in his apartment, the more demented it gets. Objects in the house start becoming possessed, his dryer explodes, severed heads start falling outside his windows, specters emerge from the walls, it gets creepier and creepier...you gotta play it lol.

Anyway, that was my pointless rant. Check out Louischou's Youtube site for all these vids (except Silent Hill 4, Baruttv from Youtube has vids for that).

Another World

2009-04-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

A lot of people ask me why it takes so long for me to release a new video...besides being lazy and having no time, I think I over complicate my work and get so frustrated with it that I just give up and move onto something else.

My wife and daughter had recently gone on vacation to India for a month and a half. During this time I had vowed to do nothing but produce videos and keep my Youtube site up to date...I meant it too...but when the time came, what did I do? Play video games...yup, that's all I did. Actually, I did produce one video reviewing NES games "Swamp Thing " and "Terminator"...but that's it.

I did actually record footage of several other games like "Big Rigs", "Action 52", and "Mystery Quest" but never bothered getting around to editing them and posting them. I started working on "Big Rigs" but what happened was, I started working on an intro animation for the video (because I can't just post the video as is...I find that it's too boring) and I came across a problem during animation. For some stupid reason, a flash animation I made of a Goomba didn't work properly (I still can't explain why) and because of that, I gave up and never went back to it. See? That's how easy it is for me to give up...sad...

So for now, and I promise to complete it, I'm working on a video that will be kind of a tribute to "Another World" which was known as "Out of this World" in North America. This game is a classic to me. I've had many good times playing this game and making home videos about it several years ago (mostly about all the funny ways you can die).

It's a side scrolling action game (like a retro Tomb Raider almost). It intially came out for the Amiga, Atari and DOS back in 1991 but later was released for other consoles like the Super Nintendo which was the only version I was familiar with at the time. I've only recently played the old DOS version and I actually find the DOS version faster and more enjoyable (aside from the missing action packed music that the SNES version provided).

Anyway, expect this new video in hopefully a weeks time. It's going to be strange and completely random (like all my videos).

Gotta start somewhere

2009-04-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't bothered typing out anything yet on my blog...only because I'm extremely lazy...and busy. Between working, spending time with the family and other misc. things, I never think of coming to work on my blog that I started probably well over a year ago.

Meh, it doesn't matter. The only person who is likely to follow my blog will be my wife anyway.

So I suppose, lets start with what I like to do in my spare time (whenever I get any). Besides wasting time playing video games, I actually enjoy spending time video editing. I work mostly on video game reviews or something related to video games. I know that's probably sad for someone my age to do but I really don't care...if I enjoy it, why should I stop? I'm not doing drugs or get drunk so what's the big deal? Besides, I have a small fan base (on my Youtube site) and as long as I have fans, I'll make videos.

Oh yeah, my Youtube site is: www.youtube.com/guardiane

My friends and I have made all sorts of videos, not necessarily video game related...check them out sometime...but make sure you have a strange sense of humor before visiting the site. Be warned, not all the videos have a "G" rating...