http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Semi daily fourhman.com newspost. en-us joe@fourhman.com 2008-04-26T23:32:29-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/04/and-now-photos.html And now, an unexpectedly themed arrangement of Brawl photos... first, some cute trophy collections, then some photos sent to me from folks on my Friend List. First, a pair of Pokemon retrospectives. The four fire-type starters, each representing a different generation. Charmander from Red/Blue, Torchic from Ruby/Sapphire, Cyndaquil from Gold/Silver, and Chimchar from Diamond/Pearl. Then we see four end-of-game legendaries... Groudon from Ruby/Sapphire, Moltres from Red/Blue, Suicune from Gold/Silver, and Palkia from Diamond/Pearl. 2879@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-04-26T23:32:29-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/04/snake-gets-twis.html Gave the 15 Minute Brawl another shot last night, this time with Pikachu. The cheapness of his b-down move excels against the Fightin' Wireframes. Although the best I could do was only about six minutes. I would invariably screw myself over by diving for an Assist Trophy and then getting dogpiled before I could pick it up. Or, even worse, I would let myself get sucked into a poor smart bomb throw. My best on 15 Minute Brawl is somewhere around 13 and a half minutes, with Donkey Kong. I've also tried Bowser, gambling on a heavy character that does not get launched as far, but I was no more successful with him than I was with Pikachu. That is some kind of crazy ass Escher thing going on there. Snake looks so messed up. 2877@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-04-24T12:18:26-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/04/another-round.html I have now been through Classic with all the characters. I guess I should start working on All-Star. Or Boss Battles, but Boss Battles sucks because you can't continue. One stupid Yoshi-egg-off-the-platform and your game is over. Yeah, so, All-Star it is then. At least with All-Star you get some really sweet trophies. Luigi is totally doing the Private Lynndie England. 2872@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-04-19T22:10:22-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/04/wolf-might-be-m.html I don't know yet. I might like Wolf just because he was the last character I unlocked and I had to really fight to get him. But I definitely find myself gravitating towards him. There are characters I like to play even though I'm no good with them (Olimar, Peach)... there are characters I'm reasonably good with even though I don't like them (Captain Falcon, Donkey Kong)... but finding a character that I like with a moveset that I feel I can effectively manipulate is where it's at, and Wolf seems to fall in that category. He's everything I like about Fox without being quite so light and zippy. Plus he has bitchin' taunts. What's the matter, scared? You've seen the Smash Taunts, right? Completely freakin' awesome, even if you can't take pictures of it in action. As soon as I unlocked Wolf, I immediately tried to set up a sweet howl-at-the-moon shot in the Mansion stage. 2870@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-04-16T00:09:02-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/04/finally-an-upsk.html I'm going through Classic mode with all the characters, just for the trophies and the corresponding Challenge achievements. With the fighters I dislike, I set it to easy and then the whole affair is over in like ten minutes. Looks like you need to play Classic multiple times to get the trophies for the alternate transformations, like Sheik and Zero Suit Samus? And speaking of that, I still haven't figured out how to start a match as Zero Suit. Now that Sakurai has come out firmly against panty shots, I might as well post a sample of my voluminous upskirt collection. I call it "The Wolf Whistle." You see, by including Wolf, I turn it into a complicated cultural touchstone, not just a bit o' pink. Now it is art. Now it belongs to the ages. 2865@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-04-13T12:37:10-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/04/the-longest-ive.html I'm at the level where any future games that lack instant photography will utterly disappoint me. Although I haven't read as such, I'm sure GTAIV will have a camera feature (San Andreas did). Seems awfully unlikely that I'll be as happy with Mario Kart Wii. I recently learned that those little hammers on the Challenge board let you smash boxes, presumably ones you think you will never finish (like all the Multi-Man-related challenges). I thought they were just some kind of achievement ranking, as in 'How are you doing with your Challenges, Joe?" "Pretty sweet, I'm up to three hammers." So if you use a hammer, do you automatically get the treasure inside? Can you use a hammer on a box that has not been revealed? How great is that Peach pic. She's sitting in a tree! 2864@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-04-09T20:33:02-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/04/again-with-this.html My challenge board is really, really full. Finding my final character this week released a string of related unlockables. It was Wolf. You know this. I'm sorta pissed, because I gave in and we looked up how to unlock him... and I was so close to stumbling into it on my own, which would have been the preferred method. You have to get Fox through Boss Battle mode (or there is some dumb hidden path in Subspace Emissary). Fox being one of my favorite characters, I definitely would have happened upon Wolf by myself. In fact, I had attempted Boss Battle mode with Fox previously, and just did not complete it. Even on the easiest difficulty, Fox is sort of underpowered against the bosses. In one night, it took me five attempts to unlock Wolf... two of those with me not even finishing the bosses. Wolf was some pretty smart AI, mainly because he went after the items... which, when the CPUs are set to stupid, they're really slow about bothering. But I did it, and that unlocked All-Star mode, another pile of Events, and several Notices/trophies. Wolf's taunt voice sounds exactly like Race Bannon. Everything Wario does is just gross. 2859@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-04-04T12:21:37-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/04/so-now-i-have-a.html The other night when I started up Brawl, it immediately threw me two notices... one, that the sprites from Advance Wars were now available as an Assist Trophy, and two, that I now have all the Assist Trophies available. That was kind of a bummer. I was hoping for a ton of Assists, like a hundred. Where's the Elite Beat Agents Assist Trophy? Chibi-Robo? Slippy? The Duck Hunt dog? The girl from Balloon Kid? Seems like a lot of missed opportunities for a game that was in development for years. Can anybody tell me why Luigi's Final Smash is a weird hippie dance? Was there some kind of Luigi Meets Late-Period Beatles game that I missed? 2857@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-04-02T14:18:37-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/03/if-only-smash-b.html Those of you on Macs or otherwise unable to get that awful bin2jpg PC program to work, try this online Brawl decrypter. Thanks to Jeffrey for finding that link! That pic of Link sailing away might be my favorite Brawl snap yet. 2853@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-03-29T22:21:31-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/03/no-actual-conte.html Geez, so I started writing more about Mario Galaxy vs. Ratchet Future and ended up boring even myself. So you get more Brawl photos. Tonight I ventured back into Subspace Emissary, which I finished a while ago but only to the tune of 84%. What the heck do I have to do to get the whole 100? Since I've been through most of the serious spoiler material already, I'm getting close to looking up the game's darker secrets. The DK Final Smash photo really isn't that remarkable... except for HIS EYES. 2852@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-03-27T00:03:21-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/03/more-more-more.html I really do not see any end in sight for these Smash pics. Even after this post, I have another pile ready to go... and I snapped more tonight. Has anybody figured out how to decrypt the replay footage? Sonic, that is not the Menacer. 2848@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-03-25T00:06:04-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/03/more-more-brawl.html Remember how I wasn't sure what final unlockable character I needed? Well, I had a clue, and then my first random online match confirmed it. That match also spoiled his Final Smash for me. So meh. I still don't know what I need to do to unlock him. And he's not a particularly original character, by the way. My random matches went as well as everybody else's. I played two and they were both laggy at times. Looks like the ping distance is the critical factor, because all my local East Coast matches have been fine, aside from the occasional weird Wi-Fi drop. We are such big fans of the Nintendog. Clark gets this huge smile on his face and jokes about how the puppy wants to get out of the TV. 2845@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-03-22T22:34:19-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/03/more-brawl-phot.html I think I only have one more character to unlock, and I honestly do not know who it is or how to unlock it. I have an idea... based on some unsubtle hints heard in one of the gaming podcasts I follow. I did a really great job of avoiding Brawl spoilers. I personally expected just about everybody from Melee to show up in Brawl, so I don't really consider guys like Falco to be meaningful spoiler material. Out of all the folks I've unlocked (and you get quite a few for completing Subspace Emissary), two were complete surprises, and that was cool. As I post more of these photo entries, I'll gradually reveal all the spoiler characters, so watch out. It seems odd to us Americans, but Sonic is only five years older than Charizard. And he can't breathe fire. Weird! 2838@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-03-15T18:32:43-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2008/03/brawl-photos.html I am going to take so many pictures in Smash Brawl. I loved the feature back in Melee, but of course there we had no place to save the photos. Brawl lets you save them to an SD card. Happily, the internet has already figured out how to convert the saved photos into a usable format. This awful little Windows utility does the job, with all of the usual Olde World Windows mess. IE, no GUI, horrid meaningless filenames, and extraneous file litter. But anyway, it works, and here's some of the many many photos I've taken. Click for a supersized version. There might be some spoilers, incidentally. During the big open movie, which does feature Luigi, Clark always asks "Where's Luigi?" Well, here's Luigi, about to get whacked in the sacks by Falco. 2835@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Smash Brawl Photos 2008-03-11T19:59:36-05:00