Team Fortress 2 Raises Over $430,000 For Japan Relief Efforts

That above is the exact amount: $430,543.65. All of it will go directly to the American Red Cross to be put to use in relief efforts for the devastating natural disaster that occurred in Japan a month ago.

The money was raised from TF2 players purchasing special hats that were available to purchase for a limited time. I've decried and bemoaned TF2's Mann Co. Store since its inception, but this was a very nice use of the service and I commend Valve for doing putting this together. Of course, if they really wanted to raise a lot of money, they'd include earnings from selling crate keys, but that's a whole different story...

Congratulations to Valve for raising a lot of money for a very worthy cause.

3LL's 3DS Odyssey: Part 1

Hello, dear reader. It's been a week since I've made a new blog post, and coincidentally, it's been a week since the 3DS was launched in North America. And what a week it was. A week of seeing, a week of believing. A week of StreetPassing, a week of SpotPassing. A week of reality augmenting, a week of face raiding. A week of... umm, sorry about that. Didn't mean to go all Charles Dickens on you. Apologies.

I decided back then to forgo rushing some quick impressions up on the site and instead wait a week, get a good feel for the device, learn its ins and outs, and then write about my impressions, thoughts, criticisms, and what have you. I'm going to break this up into parts, since I'm sure no one wants to read giant, rambling walls of text. This first part, appropriately titled "Part 1", will be about my launch day experience, which I'm sure a lot of you will find boring, but just think of it as a necessary introduction into more interesting things to come later, okay? Alright, here we go.

Before I could set my eyes upon the 3D screen for the first time and start playing, I had to, you know, buy one. All signs leading up to the launch suggested incredible scarcity, so naturally I didn't do a pre-order, because I'm just that cool. Instead, I phoned up a bunch of local retailers to see if they were going to have any. First GameStop, no luck. Second GameStop, the same. Third GameStop, they said they'd probably have a few. Cool. I decided to also try the local Target, and the helpful man on the phone said that they were going to have a bunch available. Right on! I always knew not being prudent and refusing to get a pre-order would pay off in the end.

Early morning, Sunday March 27th, and it's time to head out and pick up my 3DS. I got there a little bit before the store opened, just in case there was going to be a bunch of people lining up. There weren't. Oh well. I got in and, at last, purchased my Aqua Blue 3DS. The person working there said they had 24 3DSes, which surprised me a little that they had so many available, but as I'd learn later, it seems like supply shortages turned out to not be much of an issue at all. A lot has been made about whether this means the 3DS is selling poorly or whether it just means that Nintendo manufactured an adequate supply of units this time as opposed to the Wii launch, where there was nary a Wii to be found anywhere (except on eBay for a ridiculously gouged price). I'm inclined to believe the latter.

And so, triumphant, with 3DS in hand, I returned home. Then, all of a sudden, without warning, THE MOST INCREDI*... nah, I think I'll stop here for now. Tune in next time to hear about my initial impressions! Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

* nothing exciting or unexpected actually happens, I'm just trying to drum up suspense for the next part of this feature.

3LL on 3DS: Let's Be Friends!

Hello there! As you may have heard, the 3DS was just released in North America. Hopefully you’ve been able to pick up yours, as I have mine (unless you never cared about the 3DS in the first place, to which I question why you are reading this in the first place).

I decided to do a quick little post just in case any of you 3DS owners out there wanted to share Friend Codes. Mine is (if you haven’t seen the image on the right side of the site) 4468-0967-9973. If you want to be friends, add my code to your 3DS and then post your code in the comments section below (or email me, or tweet me).

Let’s become 3DS super best pals! I almost promise you won’t regret it. Almost…

3D-Day Imminent

It was a little over a year ago today that Nintendo dropped the bob-omb on the unsuspecting gaming public by announcing something called the 3DS. This successor to the money-printing DS could supposedly create stereoscopic 3D without the need for glasses (probably through the use of some manner of dark sorcery, but we couldn't know for sure since we didn't really know anything about it at that point).Then at E3 a couple of months later, everything was revealed and it completely stole the show. Fast forward to now, the eve of the 3DS' North American launch, and we're all ready to fix our eyes upon the magical screen.

I didn't pre-order a 3DS (because I like to live on the edge of danger), but I'll be out there nice 'n early to snag mine (hopefully [maybe]). If you're doing a launch event, line, or what have you, then I hope you have a lot of fun. If you've pre-ordered one, then congrats on being prudent and smarter than me. If you could care less about the 3DS, then keep on... doing whatever it was you were doing before.

And so, the launch day is finally at hand. Game system launches always kind of have a certain magical feel to them, kind of like a holiday just for us gamers. Good luck getting yours and have fun!

Is Super Street Fighter IV the 3DS' Best Launch Game?

Video Games | Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition | GDC 11: Full Experience Interview

Xbox 360 | PlayStation 3 | Nintendo Wii | PC Games

Above, I've embedded a new interview that GameTrailers did with a man from Capcom about the upcoming 3DS iteration of Super Street Fighter IV. While the interview itself is pretty good (albeit lacking in any info we didn't already know), I thought I'd use it as more of a launching point to discuss SSF4 and the rest of the 3DS launch lineup.

In case you need a little refresher on what games will be available for the 3DS on Day 1, I wrote a piece about it back when the announcement was first made listing which titles would be coming out as well as my thoughts on the selection. While I did concede that there wasn't a blockbuster killer app among the games, I wasn't upset like a lot of people were. I felt like it was a very solid lineup, with a few games that seemed legitimately good and not just launch day cash-in shovelware. As we draw ever closer to the North American launch (one more week!), it's time to now focus on just which game(s) are worthy of a purchase alongside the 3DS itself.

A lot of video game websites out there have received their 3DSes and the first reviews are starting to trickle in. The game I'm paying a particular interest in is Steel Diver. It was always the 3DS launch game that I was drawn to the most (despite cries of "boring!" from the comment section of pretty much every major gaming site on the web). The one thing, the ONE thing that I was always apprehensive of was whether or not it had enough content to justify a $40 dollar price tag. Unfortunately, it seems like Steel Diver comes up short in that respect.

As a poor, nigh destitute person of meager income, I must try and be as wise as I can with my gaming purchases. And so, rebuffed by the realities of Steel Diver's lack of bang-for-the-buck, I began to think of other possibilities for a Day 1 purchase. Pilotwings Resort? Nintendogs + cats? Eh... those aren't really for me. Super Monkey Ball 3D? While I'm a fan of the series, the 3DS version doesn't really have me interested. Madden? Please... EA is so ashamed of this hack-job they didn't even dignify it with a year in the title. There really is only one standout, one game that rises above the rest: Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition.

GameTrailers named the embedded video above the "Full Experience Interview", and that reflects precisely what SSF4 on 3DS is: a full experience. Not only does it bring nearly every feature over from the console version of the game, but it has numerous added touches that utilize the 3DS' unique functionality. StreetPass, new touchscreen control options, and, of course, 3D visuals.

I'm going to admit, I'm not exactly the most experienced "street fighter". I, like so many others, plunked down my fair share of quarters at the local Street Fighter II arcade cabinet back in the day, and I've also put in a lot of time with Marvel vs Capcom 2 (if you care to consider that a Street Fighter game). I'm not really all that good at either game, but they are certainly a lot of fun. I've never played Street Fighter IV in any form, so playing it on the 3DS will be a completely new experience for me. I know a lot of people are turned off to the 3DS game because they've already played it so much on the XBox 360 or PS3, but obviously that's not going to be a problem for me.

So, to reiterate the question posed in the tile of this blog post: is Super Street Fighter IV the 3DS' best launch game? It seems very possible, if not outright likely. Everyone's certainly going to have their own opinions, but I believe the general consensus will prove SSF4 to be the cream of the launch crop. It's the one game I'm going to try and pick up along with the 3DS on launch day, so I'm hoping my suspicions hold true.

Site Note: The Blogger Formerly Known As...

First of all, apologies for the extended silence on the blog (last post was almost a week ago). I am nothing if not a slacker.

Now to the matter at hand: I've changed my Blogger display name from "Mayor Defacto" to "Alex Agahnim". When I first decided that I wanted to try my hand at blogging, I figured I needed a cool blogging moniker to go by. As I pondered names, "Mayor Defacto" seemed to click in my mind. If you don't know, anytime you start a new city in the SimCity series, you're asked what your name is and are thus named "Mayor Whatever-your-name-is". The default name is "Defacto", and as a fan of SimCity, I thought it would be a neat reference. Starting a brand new blog is kind of analogous to starting to build a new city, so it seemed to fit (and the video game allusion was already built-in).

However, now that I'm a few months into my blogging adventure, I don't think the name fits anymore. As I start to actually communicate with people across the spectrum of internet social sites, the name "Mayor Defacto" just seems too cold and anonymous. I have no qualms about using my real name (Alex Fuller!) on the interwebs, but like I said before, I wanted to have a "blogging name" to go by that was video game related somehow.

And so, with the knowledge that it would be too boring to simply calling myself by my real name, but that it would also be too impersonal to go with a completely anonymous alias, I decided to go with a combination of both: which turned out to be (by using all of my brainpower at full capacity for several consecutive days straight to come up with) "Alex Agahnim". If you have no idea what an "Agahnim" is, then you probably never played A Link to the Past. I liked the name not only because LttP is my favorite game, but because "Agahnim" was actually Ganon's alter ego. I thought that it was fitting, since my blogging/internet identity is kind of like an alter ego of me IRL. Also, you got that double "A" alliteration thing going, so you know, it sounds kind of cool (read: incredibly lame).

And... wow, I can't believe I actually just wrote a lengthy blog post about what arbitrary name I call myself online. I think I need to go read Homer's Odyssey and brush up on the fallacies of identity and perception. I don't even know what that means.

TL;DR: I'm the same person, I just changed my display name from "Mayor Defacto" to "Alex Agahnim". I'm pretty sure all of the old posts now show the new name, so if you're a new reader, you won't know what the hell I'm talking about here anyway. Just call me "Alex" if you want. I really don't want to confuse anyone.

The Shogun Pack Brings Feudal Japan to Team Fortress 2

In their typical out-of-the-blue update style, Valve released to TF2 players everywhere today the latest major content pack in the venerable online shooter: The Shogun Pack. It brings with it 4 new weapons and 4 new hats, each imbued with the spirit of feudal Japan (why not; the stylistic coherency of the game was abandoned long ago anyway). Here's what the new update brings:

The Concheror: A secondary slot weapon for the Soldier that operates similarly to the Buff Banner. On buff, some of the damage your teammates dish out comes back to you as healing.

Conniver's Kunai: A melee weapon for the Spy. The player starts with -65% max health, but you absorb the health of every opponent you backstab.

The Fan O'War: A melee weapon for the Scout. It does -90% damage, but on hit, it marks that player and does mini-crits on him for every hit.

The Half-Zatoichi: A melee weapon for both the Soldier and Demo. On kill, it restores the player's health back to 100%. However, once it is drawn, it can't be put back until it kills.

The Dread Knot: A hat for the Heavy. It looks like a the kind of knotted haircut you often see sumo wrestlers sporting.

The Geisha Boy: A hat for the Medic. A geisha hairstyle for the Medic? Really? As a primary Medic player, I'm offended.

The Noh Mercy: A hat for the Spy. An awesome kabuki-style oni (demon) mask, easily the best hat out of the four in this pack. I'm guessing it'll fetch a pretty penny on trade servers.

The Samur-Eye: A hat for the Demo. A plain ol' samurai helmet, not unlike the Soldier's Killer Kabuto.

Also, there's the Koto Noisemaker, which is a noisemaker that makes some stereotypical Japanese-y noises. Buy a bunch and troll your friends!

This pack was just released as I write this, so I haven't had time to try out any of the new stuff yet. Just from reading the descriptions, I don't think I'd really use any of them, but I usually think that about all new weapons in TF2.