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Talking about YouTube – Been Had Hockey Cards

 

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Talking about YouTube – Been Had Hockey Cards

#15 – Tokyo Xtreme Racer

Tricky Played it on: Dreamcast

As we approach the end of this list, my favourite games in certain genres will be revealed. Not only that, my favourite game for certain systems will be revealed as well. And sometimes I will be able to kill two birds with one stone, as is the case with Tokyo Xtreme Racer. It fits the bill as the best racer ever made and the most impressive title of the Dreamcast’s too short life. It is an extremely satisfying racer with simple yet fun gameplay and it shows the graphical punch the Dreamcast had in its day.
If I were just to tell you some of the features of the game you would think it is the worst racing game ever made. The game featured one race type, head-to-head. It also featured one track to race on. Even I think those last two sentences sound horrible, but surprising the simplicity could be so fun. This is by no means a deep game, but you don’t always need a lot of options to make a good game. I rather have a nice ripe apple than a full basket of bruised apples or in better terms quality over quantity.
What you basically do in this game is drive around looking for other cars who want to street race. When you find a car you flash them with your headlights. Then it becomes a head-to-head race, each car has a life bar that slowly depletes for how far behind they are in the race until the bar reaches zero. Each race is pretty much exactly the same except for the difficulty level. If I remember correctly in the end there are about 300 races to partake in, so this game will last you quite a while.
The game might not be much of a looker now, but at the time it looked really nice. The game lacked some much needed colour, but the presentation was just top-notch, with beautiful replays and some cool camera angles before each race. The music also fit the game well with some beats that got your blood pumping during those races.
I have never been a big racing fan, the genre just doesn’t happen to entice me, but this game definitely is fun. It won’t appeal to everybody, especially the hardcore racing fans who expect an extremely deep experience, yet it still is extreme or should I say Xtreme! Whatever the case may be, if you still have a Dreamcast laying around it is a good idea to find a way to get your hands on this game.

-Tricky Out

Tricky Opinion – Bell’s New Advertising Campaign

A few years ago, Bell
introduced two beavers named Frank and Gordon to help promote one of Canada’s
oldest companies. Some people hated them while others loved them. Whatever side
you were on you had to admit that it just made sense. The beaver is our national
animal so there were no better mascots to promote such a well known Canadian
company. Now more than two years after they’re debut they have been put to
sleep to make space for a new advertising campaign. But what is the deal with
this new campaign? Is it more effective than they’re previous one?
A few weeks ago I was in the car with some friends when I
saw a billboard advertising the new Samsung Instinct cell phone (on a side
note: that phone is uber sexy). The tagline on the billboard in black font was
“Apple Biter” with the er in blue. My
first impression was that Bell
really hit the mark with this clever ad, why not go head on with Rogers
and the iPhone. But why was the er blue,
what the heck does that have to do with Bell?
Well, after watching a lot of these er ads and doing a lot of research I came up with this conclusion, it means…
absolutely nothing!
That’s right, there is no connection between er and Bell. Some have said that it
could be that if you add er to Bell
it would make Beller, which might considered a person who uses Bell’s
services. Or another one is that Beller is very close to the word better which
could be another shot at the competition. But in the end it is just a way they
connect all they’re ads, it has no meaning other than that. Than why would Bell
do such a stupid thing? Because as stupid as it is, it’s brilliant. Type er and Bell into Google and just see how
many blogs pop up with people ranting about it. I’ve heard people on the street
trying to make a connection out of the ads. Bell
has created buzz about they’re brand and that is exactly what they need. Rogers
has been real successful with the iPhone so Bell
has now got people talking about Bell.
And with the invasion of American phone companies coming into our market soon Bell
wants all eyes on them.
As brilliant as these ads are on a buzz level, it is hard to
measure if it will result in more sales. Sure I like what they have done, but
it doesn’t mean I would switch to a Bell
phone if I was with a different company. It depends what they’re motives were
for this new campaign. Was it clearly for buzz purposes only or do they plan to
get a bunch of whole new customers? I can’t answer that question, but I will
say that this is a way to start to compete with Rogers
who is dominating the cell phone market.
This campaign is one of the reasons why I got into
marketing. Marketers (at least in the field of advertising) can be creative and
can express a message to consumers in unique ways. Sure, you can have a totally
unique idea, but if it didn’t fulfill the company’s goals, it doesn’t matter. So
who knows if this is what Bell
wanted, at least I’m pretty sure it can’t hurt them. I’ll miss you Frank and
Gordon, but for now this campaign is just plain bett-er.

– Tricky Out

Tricky’s World 200th Post

Yay, another hundred in the bag! It has been exactly 14 months since my 100th post which is much better than the 17 months it took to get to that first one hundred. These 200 posts have been full of everything that comes to my mind, from boring to the down right weird. Now it’s time for some useless facts about the past 200 posts that you will never use in your day-to-day life. As you’ll see there are even more random categories compared to my 100th post. Enjoy:

Number of Posts – 200
Number of Posts with Comments – 39
Total Number of Comments – 62
Most Comments on a Post – 5 (“Getting into the blog” – first
ever post)
Longest Post – “Top 10 Video Game Characters” (2171 Words)
Shortest Post – “Tricky Guestbook” (41 Words)
Number of Albums – 9
Number of Photos in Albums – 576
Number of Posts with Pictures – 154
Total Number of Pictures in Posts – 370
Number of Posts with Videos – 3
Category with the Most Posts – “Top 100 Video Games” (87
Posts)
Category with the Least Posts – “Tricky Guestbook” (1 Post)
Number of Categories – 12

Month with the Most Amount of Posts – May 2006 (26 Posts)
Month with the Least Amount of Posts – Tie November 2006 and
April 2007 (1 Post)
Overall Month with Most Posts – May (40 posts)
Overall Month with Least Posts – November (9 posts)
Average Review Score (out of 10) – 7.1 (37 Reviews)
Number of Posts that end in Tricky Out – 200
Total Page Views – 4165

There you have it, everything you ever needed to know about your favourite (or to many, least favourite) destination on the web. I’m one fifth to my goal of 1000 posts and at this pace it should take another 12 years for me to get there. Hopefully, it will take half that or even less. Whatever the case may be, thank you for visiting and leaving comments. It’s nice to know some of you care about some of the junk I talk about.

– Tricky Out

Tricky Retrospect – E3 2008

E3, no other event gets a gamer more excited. It’s an event full of everything you want to play this holiday season and beyond. I have considered it much like a second Christmas and one of my life goals is to somehow get to go to the show one day (if it is still around). I have so many fond memories of this event, almost as if I was actually there. I will never forget E3 2006 when Nintendo stole the show with the ridiculously long line-ups to play the Wii. Or what about E3 2005 when we got the first look at our current consoles (boomerang PS3 controller included). Or last year when the show was downsized after 12 years of what we knew and loved. So many memories, good and bad, and with the move back to the L.A. Convention Centre this year I had extremely high hopes and expected many more memorable moments. Were my expectations met? We’ll find out in this edition of Tricky Retrospect.
There are a few things to note before we get down to business First
of all, my ratings are based on a number of things, not just the
software, including each company’s press conference, new announcements, and which games
were playable. Secondly, I put each company in the order I
felt they finished the show and I also included what my prediction was
going into the show just in case you don’t remember from my previous posts or are just too lazy to look back at them. Finally, you can check out the new album I created
which has the big name titles that I feel were good showings.

Predictions going into the show

3rd – Microsoft
2nd – Sony
1st – Nintendo

Let’s find out how it all went down:

(Tie) 2nd – Nintendo

The Good – Animal Crossing: City Folk announced
                 – Finally online chat
                 – Wii MotionPlus looks really good
                 – GTA on the DS
                 – Some quality third-party titles

The Bad – Worst Press Conference (only an hour long)
              – Where are the hardcore titles?
              – No storage solution
              – Wii Music looks way too simplistic
              – MotionPlus only shown for one game so far
              – No dates given for big titles
              – Not much mention of WiiWare games

Overall: Nintendo really dropped the ball on this one. This was their show to steal and they missed it by a long shot. I am excited about the new MotionPlus but will third parties make games to utilize it knowing that not every Wii owner will have it? And voice chat is very cool, but why couldn’t they have just made it regular person-to-person, the whole room speaker does not appeal to me. The lack of a storage solution has got me really pissed off now, Nintendo says they care about the hardcore crowd (they even mentioned it near the beginning of their press conference) yet they don’t deliver on this. Not only that, there were hardly any games targeted toward hardcore gamers which really seems like a slap in the face. It makes me wonder why I continue to support this company, a PS3 or Xbox 360 seems awfully tempting right now.
Rating: 6 out of 10

(Tie) 2nd – Sony

The Good – Decent Press Conference
                 – Still showing love to PS2 owners
                 – Some interesting titles for the Playstation Network
                 – MAG seems to be a very cool ambitious title
                 – LittleBigPlanet looks amazing

The Bad – Lack of surprises
              – No new PSP
              – Where are all the new games?
              – Killzone 2 missing from Press Conference
              – Not that much to get excited about this holiday season
              – Should have been more of a focus on the PS3

Overall: Sony needed a great show like last year to keep up the momentum they have had as of late and this wasn’t what they needed. There are some cool new titles like MAG and God of War 3 coming out, but that still won’t show up until next year. LittleBigPlanet looks awesome, but we have known about this game for so long already. There seemed to be too much of a focus on the PSP and PS2 when the real attention should be brought to the PS3. This holiday season might very well be Sony’s last chance to get back into this race. And the lack of surprises really made me feel as though Sony is giving up early in this generation, they feel as though they know they already lost.
Rating: 6 out of 10

1st – Microsoft

The Good – Best Press Conference (live demos of most of the games people wanted to see)
                 – Showed a lot of great titles for this year and next
                 – Huge surprise that FF13 is coming to the system
                 – Some really cool Xbox Live Arcade games
                 – Trying to appeal to both hardcore and casual gamers
                 – Gears of War 2 was a show stopper

The Bad – The new avatars seem to blatantly rip-off Miis
              – Too much of a focus on casual games in the Press Conference
              – Online redesign is not needed
              – Not too many new games we didn’t know about

Overall: I didn’t expect much from Microsoft and for the most part I was right until they hit everybody with that Final Fantasy announcement. They have some really good quality games coming out, but why put so much focus on casual games? Nintendo has that market locked so trying to bite into it just seems like a lot of wasted time and money. They didn’t have an amazing showing, but compared to the other two they were definitely the best. They focused on the games and that is the key for winning (just take a look at Sony last year).
Rating: 7 out of 10

Final Thoughts

Wow, I really messed up this year in my predictions for both the companies and the quality of the show. I was expecting one amazing show or at least one that was better than last year and now I’m stuck with this. Too many problems overall to list. The show lacked surprises, there were only a few. There were some great games, but nothing as exciting as some of the previous years. So many rumours that got your hopes up only to be crushed. And yes I’m going to complain about it again, the show just doesn’t feel the same after the whole downsizing. Maybe the next console war will bring back the quality of E3 much like it did in 2005 and 2006. After hearing all these rumours about this being the last E3 I would have been really proud to see it go out with an amazing bang, instead we get this loud thud.

Overall rating of the show: 6 out of 10

-Tricky Out

Tricky Review – Hancock

I want to share with you an excerpt from my Iron Man review a few months ago about how I felt about superhero movies, "let’s just hope they calm down on these types of movies or at least do something a bit more creative with them." This is where Hancock comes in, it is a very different take on what a superhero movie usually is. This means that this film had a lot of potential to be a truly creative title that redefines the genre, but in the end this potential is missed and we are left with a movie that should have just followed the superhero conventions.
The movie starts off fairly well and seems to promise the audience an entertaining experience. The first ten minutes are full of great special effects and some funny jokes. You slowly get to feel for Hancock (Will Smith) and Ray (Jason Bateman) who is trying to help Hancock turn his life around. It is still about a hero struggling to become the best he can be; we’ve seen in in Spider-Man and countless other superhero films. But Smith’s portrayal of Hancock makes things different and interesting, you want to see if things can truly change. Maybe it isn’t as original as I had originally thought, but it was definitely done in a different way than the films of the past.
The movie takes a dive near the midway point with a big plot twist. I’m usually for unexpected plot twists but this one just didn’t seem to work, it was put in there just to shake things up and wasn’t needed at all. After that point the humour and story just feel disconnected. It goes from a cool and humorous film to one that takes itself a little too seriously for the the type of story it turns into (from action comedy to emotional romantic drivel). The way the plot moves forward feels forced and just doesn’t make things flow as well as they were earlier.
This was marketed as a comedy superhero film, but really the film is quite light on humour. As I stated earlier the first half has some funny jokes, but nothing that is truly memorable. Will Smith is a charming actor and is able to squeeze out jokes that usually hit easily yet his humour appeal seemed to be dumbed down for the entire film. Bateman actually seems to bring a good presence to the screen as his character feels a lot like the one he portrays in Arrested Development.
So what we have here is a case of two different movies, one decent and one bad. The first half is nothing special, but it definitely shows promise and does things a bit differently than the norm. The second half tries to engage the audience with an interesting story which just turns out to be a jumbled mess. Overall, Hancock is a forgettable film that  really should have been better than it was. It ends up being a jack of all trades, master of none.
2.5 out of 5 stars.

– Tricky Out

Trick Picks – E3 2008 Predictions: Nintendo

Here I am with the last, but definitely not the least of my
predictions, Nintendo. You all know how the format works by now so no point in
explaining it. The show starts tomorrow with the Microsoft Press Conference,
followed by the Nintendo and Sony Press Conference on Tuesday. You’ll be able
to catch my review on the whole show probably near the end of the week. I am
super pumped; this is like a second Christmas for me, it really is. If you want
to catch the press conferences or just get general coverage on the show, you
can check out ign.com or better yet order G4Tech TV and catch the show live on
air. Let’s get started.

Predictions

Storage Solution for
Wii

This might not sound like the most exciting announcement,
but this is a priority that Nintendo has to take care of. Ever since the Wii
was released almost two years ago, there has been a storage solution. If you
bought a lot of virtual console games (and now WiiWare games) you quickly ate
away at the internal memory of the system. Sure, you are able to save the games
on an SD card, but you are not allowed to play them directly off of them
requiring you to waste time transferring them every time you wanted to play.
The really hardcore Nintendo fans (like myself) have already gotten pissed off
because of the more casual approach the company has taken with Wii that not
doing something about the storage problem at E3 might be the last straw. I
don’t know exactly what will be announced, I would most likely think it is a
external hard drive, but it can also be something to do with the USB
port or SD Card slot. Whatever it is, I’ll just be happy that they are finally
taking this issue seriously.

No New DS

There has been many rumors that Nintendo will announce a new
DS at the show especially because they think Sony will announce a new handheld
as well (which I predict they will), but Nintendo just won’t. The DS has been
the hottest electronic after the iPod. Sales have been through the roof and
don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Just look at some of the titles
that will be released shortly for the system: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Final Fantasy IV, Chrono Trigger DS,
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood… the list can go on and on. So tell
me why would they release a new system? They are making so much money now that
it just doesn’t make since on a business stand point. It is possible that a new
DS design is announced at the show, but with how popular the Lite already is,
that probably won’t happen.

Animal Crossing Wii Announced

Out of all the companies Nintendo will have the biggest new
game announcements. I expect to see Kid
Icarus and Wii Music at the show.
And hopefully Pikmin 3 make an
appearance (that would just be amazing). Despite all this, Nintendo’s big
announcement will be the much rumored about Animal
Crossing Wii. Al signs point to this game being at the show. Nintendo
clearly stated a few months ago that they will have a big game announcement
that will excite both casual and hardcore gamers; this title fits that
description perfectly. The game is also rumored to be online so the
announcement of a storage solution would help this game with downloadable
content. I could be totally wrong about this prediction as Nintendo could show
of a totally new property shocking everyone (just look how unexpected Wii Fit was last year), but I’ve had a
feeling about this for a very long time.

Games at the show

Animal Crossing Wii
The Conduit
Kid Icarus
Wii Music
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Wario Land:
Shake It!
MadWorld
EA Fitness
Skate It
Pikmin 3 (hopefully!)

Overall

Nintendo played it safe last year and only made two big
announcements with Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii. This year I have a
feeling that they will steal the show. They will do what Sony did last year and
focus on what makes a system so great, the games. The first-party stuff will be
the real highlight, but some quality third-party titles should push them over
the edge. I predict a first place finish at this year’s show for the Big N.
Please don’t disappointment me Nintendo! 

– Tricky Out

Tricky Review – Matchstick Men: A Novel About Grifters With Issues

Tricky here with book review number three of Tricky’s World entire lifetime and it’s also the third book here that has been turned into a motion picture. The other two books I found were better than their movie counterparts, so will this trend continue here? Unfortunately it will not as the Matchstick Men movie is much better than the book. But don’t get me wrong, this book is still a good read.
For those of you who don’t know, the Matchstick Men film is my second favourite movie of all-time (right behind Ocean’s Eleven) and for good reason. The film captures the characters perfectly and takes you through a very interesting plot right through to the huge twist at the end. The book goes through the same route but it doesn’t do it quite as well. You don’t really care for the characters as much in the book, they aren’t as well developed. For example, Roy in the film (portrayed by Nicolas Cage) is much more likeable than the Roy in the book. They are still good, believable characters, but it’s a shame the author didn’t flesh them out a bit more.
As I mentioned earlier there is a big twist at the end. The book and the movie present it in different ways, but for the most part it’s the same. There are two big differences that I would like to point out. First, the book needs the twist ending because without it the book would have just been an average tale of con men doing their business. The movie on the other hand would still have been amazing despite the twist because of how well developed the story and the characters were. The second difference is that the book ends abruptly after the twist leaving you wanting more. While the movie’s ending adds more and is great which really caps off an excellent movie.
The book does do something better than the film and that is the cons that are pulled off. The movie’s cons are still great and very interesting, but there are much more in the book and much more interesting ones too. The little cons they pull off are pure genius (such as the card trick and the ‘twenties’ con) and it really gets you feeling like your a con man. Even the lottery scam that is pulled off in the film is done much better here in the book.
This book had a lot to live up to in my opinion and it just couldn’t do it. Maybe I would have given this a higher rating if I had read it before seeing the movie, but for now this is how it stands. It’s still a good book that I recommend fans of the heist and con genre to check out. For everybody else, I would still recommend it if your looking for a short book that is full of some very interesting tricks, just don’t expect the most likeable characters.
3.5 out of 5 stars.

– Tricky Out

Trick Picks – E3 2008 Predictions: Microsoft

I’m back with part two of my E3 2008 predictions, this time
I’m here to talk about Microsoft. The format will be exactly the same as it was
for the last one. Enough wasting time, let’s get to my juicy predictions.

Predictions

Blu-ray Support

HD DVD is officially
dead. Microsoft has stated in the past that they wouldn’t just support it if
Blu-ray became the medium of choice for movies. Now that HD DVD
is gone it is time for them to jump in with Sony. This announcement shouldn’t
really excite gamers, but it is a good indication that Microsoft is paying
attention to the market around them and fixing issues when issues happen. This
announcement probably won’t even be a big deal because it will most likely be
an attachable drive, much like the HD DVD
one, that will be a little overpriced when people can buy a Blu-ray player for
a relatively good price these days.

No Motion Controller

I know this is more of a no-show than an actual
announcement, but I just wanted to put rumors to rest. Nintendo has been greatly
successful with the Wii due in most part by the motion sensing controller. Microsoft
has seen Nintendo’s technology cost them their number one spot in this console
generation, but I don’t just see them copying Nintendo, it’s not like
Microsoft. As cool as it would be it just won’t happen. How are older games
that have no motion control supposed to work with the new controller? Microsoft
is still the baby in the video game market, but it has become quite large with
some original and creative ideas, they aren’t known to just copy cat other companies.

Price-cut

The Xbox 360 is at a relatively good price right now, it is
more expensive than a Wii, but a little cheaper than a PS3. And really that is
where it sits in terms of features and processing power so it seems to fit
perfectly. Despite this, Microsoft is losing more and more ground to Nintendo,
so I’m sure you’ll hear about a price drop at the show, probably around $50. I
don’t think this will be enough to catch up to Nintendo, but at least it is a
start.

Games at the show

Gears of War 2
Bioshock 2
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Halo Wars
Too Human
Left 4 Dead
Resident Evil 5
Fable 2
Prince of Persia
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Overall

In the end I find it really hard to predict what will happen
to Microsoft at E3. I’m not expecting to hear any big surprises, but they could
still be holding something up their sleeves. I hope they are as this looks like
it will be a real weak showing, letting Sony catch up even more. They have a
good line of exclusives coming, but they aren’t enough to win this generation.
Just like last year, I believe Microsoft will finish last.

– Tricky Out