Post 26 - Getting back on track

GETTING BACK ON TRACK

Alright so it's been a while since things have been on track, but it's about time I do what I can to get things moving. After my grandmother passed away a whole slue of events occurred and now I'm just trying to even everything out. If I keep my fingers crossed within the next week or so everything should be right back on track and moving along once again. I have my friends to thank for that. There's Mandy with her beating stick.


So here's an update on somethings I have planned and what not. From now on I'm going to try and post a new video on my Locke Downe channel every Monday and Thursday. That's going to be my goal and I'm going to see if I can stick with it. On that channel I plan to do professional style videos including:

- Original Skits
- Things I've bought recently
- Previews
- Impressions
- Reviews
- Collections
- Top Ten Lists
- Shout-outs
- Videos by Request
- Quickvids (this can range from collections to anything really)

...and mainly just stuff like that. However, if you're still interested in my own personal side of things and just random videos like Vlogs or other random stuff then you'll also want to subscribe to my LockeTalks channel. There you'll see all sorts of random stuff happen and I'll try to post it as often as I can, but I really can't give you an estimated date to say "videos will be out every weekend"... so I yeah, I don't know when you'll see them, they'll be a surprise.


Aside from that in life I'm still working on my goal to move out. However the details have changed a little bit. I want to have 1,500$ saved up, I want to get myself a new 42" HD TV, a TV stand, 2 Shelves and enough extra cash for first month's rent, activation fees, damage deposits and all that fine stuff. It's going to be one hell of a journey but our Goal Date is October 1st. So we'll see if we can do it. Luckily my next game purchase is Fallout: New Vegas so I should be good with saving money. Also, if you guys have any donations and stuff you'd like to send me let me know on my Youtube page by messaging me, or you can leave a comment in the link below and we'll arrange something.

As always guys, thanks for the support, and in the words of another great gamer (Sarynthra). "Keep on gaming."

- Locke Downe

Post 25 - Phoenix Update

PHOENIX UPDATE

I haven't really had the time to do one of this up. I was going to do one a week ago after the midnight premier of Iron Man 2. But at this point, I feel enough people have seen it to just have to say "It was great, go see it if you liked the first one"

So on top of that, things have been pretty good. I had a really rough week with very little sleep and I've been feeling a bit draggy. I'm on my second day off and still don't really feel like I've accomplished much for my time off, but it's all good.

Couple updates on pickups.

I decided to go ahead and pick up 3d Dot Game Heroes. Very few copies of this game seemed to have been shipped and with an excellent opening price of $44 I had to pick it up right when we received it. I'm going to be putting some time into it tonight and I'll come back with my findings.

This past Sunday I picked up the Black Wii. I managed to sell my white one for $180 and they gave me extra for bringing it to them...I felt a little bad because they obviously didn't realise they dropped price..but oh well..

So I picked up a black one that comes with all the stuff the white ones did, and Wii Motion Plus and Wii sports resort...which in store, retail together for 59.99. so overall, good bargain, and I llovvvee the black one. I've played more wii this week than I have the entire time in owning one (slight exaggeration, but still)

And yesterday I picked up a new PSP. Nikki wanted one for when Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep releases, so I figured with the recent bundle price drop (149.99) I'd pick up the Rock Band edition and get my old one ready for her.

Surprisingly enough, Rock band is really fun on the PSP. It goes back to their Amplitude roots, which was one of the first games I'd ever played on the PS2. Sadly when I sold my first one I sent that off with it and I've never been able to find another copy. But I really found that this game incorporated everything that was so good about that game, and what's great about the rock band system and put it into one package with better music. So I'm impressed. It also came with a school of rock UMB and a 4gig memory stick. great bargain.

So that'll be it for me for a couple of weeks..Nikki's picking me up Red Dead Redemption and something else for our anniversary (that's why she's getting the PSP, with a couple add ons) and I'm really looking forward to that. If I end up picking anything else up it'll be actual rock band (prepping for the Green Day release) and Darksiders on the PS3.

-Hybrid Phoenix

(originally posted on Phoenix Ignition)

Post 24 - Marble Hornets

MARBLE HORNETS

Alright, so if you know me and know me well, you will know that I am most definitely into horror videos (provided they're done right). After getting sent a link by Talcon to Marble Hornet's page on youtube, I fell in love with their little series. Now many people constantly debate: Is it real? Is it fake? - well to be honest, I think it's a game. That's right. A game, and that's exactly why I'm featuring it here today.

J is name of guy who runs the channel. He posts Entries every so often and we watch them. Every little single detail. Now, with every clip J often gives up tiny bits of info or insight as to what happens in each. This is where I think the game aspect comes in. I think it's up to us to notice and pick out all the little clues given in these clips. As an example, for those of you who were following his twitter at the time, you'll notice around Entry #24, he submitted an image to Tweetpic of five random numbers. Well it was the community who told J the numbers were date. Which is why I believe it's a game. J wants us to paste the pieces together and create a new sort of interactive medium, where we as an online community truly believe we're helping someone get out of a horror-movie situation... Either that or it's all real and the world's fucked!

Either way, I just thought I'd mention that to you guys and I hope you all go out and check Marble Hornets. The Slenderman is definitely the creepiest thing about it all. If I end up finding anything I'll post it here in my next Marble Hornets post. So until next time.

- Locke Downe.

Post 23 - Just Quick

JUST QUICK

Hey, I just wanted to let you guys know that the blog is undergoing some minor construction and due to some of the recent events in my life I will have to delay further blog posts until Tuesday May 25th. Sorry for the inconvenience.

- Locke Downe

Post 21 - Skate 3 Impressions

SKATE 3 IMPRESSIONS (Mini-Review)

I hate to admit, but even though I loved the first skate game, I skipped over Skate 2. The walking controls were just awful and I felt like the series had not yet reached it's potential. However, with Skate 3 I think we're getting there. First off Skate's gameplay remains almost unchanged from the second entry. This time Darkslides have been added (which is something I was waiting for since the first game) and the walking around controls, while still far from perfect, are a lot better than in Skate 2.

The environment is quite likable. Everything looks extremely beautiful with occasional pop-ins and screen taring, but nothing so major that it pulls you out of the experience entirely. The only thing about the environment is that there's no weather changes and no cycle between night and day, which would have been an interesting addition. Aside from that the graphics are solid, but not revolutionary, and also the addition to create your own custom graphics IN-GAME rather than on the website would have been nice too.



Story. So far the game barely has one. You've created your own brand, and now you want board sales. Simple enough right? Well unfortunately this form of storytelling leaves you selecting through menus and attempting challenges through out the majority of the game to actually give you emotions and cut-scenes. To me, the idea of creating your team and brand is a GREAT idea, but the story should have been more like Tony Hawk Underground. To me, that game had one of the best skateboarding stories ever. I loved how you started out as nothing. Met locals, events happened, you showed off, got big, all that stuff! It was awesome! I mean you even had a rival and missions that didn't always focus around skateboarding. You felt like you were playing an actual character! Which is something we don't see anymore.



Alright so here come the improvements and all the cool little details about Skate 3. Skate 3's newest and coolest feature comes in the form of team based challenges that you can both attempt with your own customizable A.I team mates or with your friends online! Now, I haven't had a chance to play online yet so I just played with my A.I team, and will tell you. Nothing pisses me off more than when trying to attempt a Jam competition to see who can wrack up the most points, and all four A.I boarders are crashing into you left and right just as you're about to finish that Melon flip. However, saying that. It's not always your A.I team mates that hit you. It's normally the other team. My team mates are actually quite competent. I was surprised. Another cool feature that I absolutely loved, is the ability to call up your A.I team mates, or pro skaters, or locals and just go out skating with them. Up to now I rode down Observatory road and the Super-Mega-Death-Park with my team, and nothing has ever felt more freeing. It was an amazing experience that I can only imagine gets better when you play online. Also, another really cool feature was being able to play as Issac from Dead Space in Free Play mode.

As far the sound goes, the way your board shreds against rails and rolls across concrete sound PERFECT! The soundtrack is also very different. Featuring rap, punk, metal and all sorts of other stuff from many known artists.

Overall Skate 3 is the best one in series. If you liked Skate 1 or Skate 2, definitely pick it up, but be warned, it doesn't stray far from that path of the previous titles. If skateboarding is your life, don't think twice. BUY NOW! As for everyone else, give it a rent to see if it's different enough from the first two to justify the price tag. I own Skate 1, and the second Skate 3 drops below 49.99 I'm buying it!

Graphics: 8.5 out of 10
Sound: 9.0 out of 10
Gameplay: 8.5 out of 10
Story: 7.0 out of 10

Overall: 8.2 out of 10

Should I pick it up?
Yes, however you might want to wait for a slight price drop.

How much should I pay?
49.99 - Try and get it used if you can. It won't be valuable one day.

Post 20 - What's been going on

WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON

Alright, so first off let me apologize for the lack of posts more recently. As always life has been busy, with that said a lot has happened over the last few days. As I mentioned in a much earlier post, I've been trying to save up enough money to feel safe once I move out. My over-all goal is to have about 2000.00$ saved up, plus additional money for damage deposit, a large screen TV and so on. I'm proud to announce that thanks to my vacation paycheck, I am currently half-way there! Which is enough to put a smile on my face.



Secondly, I've managed to get over my cold that I had recently and in doing so I've managed to snag a little extra time to play some games lately. I've played Grand Theft Auto IV, Skate 3, God of War 3 and Zelda: A link to the past. It's been a lot of fun, with the majority of my time being taken by Skate 3. I'm also really excited for this month's release of Red Dead Redemption! It's going to be an awesome game and I can't wait to play it.


I've also managed to add a couple new things to my collection this week, which I will be showing you in a new video really soon, so I don't want to give away any spoilers so you'll just have to wait on that, but while we're talking about Youtube there's something I wanted to mention. About three days ago I spent almost 6 hours making a slideshow (just to do something different and try out some new editing techniques) and once I posted it I dropped almost 10 subs. What the hell's up with that!? Guess some people are so impatient that when something other than a collection video pops-up they bolt it! Oh well. In other news, the vlogs on LockeTalks were a success. People seem to enjoy them quite a bit so I'll be continuing with that really soon.

Aside from that everything's going steady but at the same time life's been feeling really bland lately. Like nothing's really worth the effort and the reward just isn't as good as it originally was. I don't know if I'm the only one feeling this way as of now, but we'll see. Guess life just likes to make you feel down every now and then.

- Locke Downe

Post 19 - Four Chord Song

FOUR CHORD SONG



So Hybrid Phoenix found this video while surfing the web a couple days ago. It's actually a shame that this is true. For a lot of music fans out there, this is a sad sad day. lol j/k. It's actually a really cool video that shows: Music with originality is a GREAT thing. Also, make sure to check out the Marble hornets videos Featured as this week's video. I'm sure Hybrid Phoenix would agree on that one! lol.

Also another thing I wanted to mention was that LockeTalks has totally changed and I just uploaded a new vlog last night, so please make sure to go check that out, and tell your friends about it too! Thank you.

- Locke Downe

(This video was found by Hybrid Phoenix on Youtube.)

Post - LockeTalks is changing

LOCKETALKS IS CHANGING

Alright, so for those of you who are subscribed to LockeTalks this is no surprise, but I decided that I wanted to change that channel around. The way I was going now, nothing was ever getting done on it because editing and stuff for that channel took almost just as long as my normal channel so I decided it was time for a change. Now LockeTalks will simply be daily Vlogs. So in other words, just me talking to a camera. So if you think you're the kind of person that would enjoy day to day things in my life than subscribe, but either way it's changing.

Another thing is, even though I'm working with Videoslave to create short-skits and stuff for our new upcoming channel, I also want to take some time to truly upgrade my channel. First things first. I need a name for my show, and I know you're probably all thinking "What show?" Well everything that goes on my L0CKED0WNE channel is technically considered part of "The Show". That's right, L0CKED0WNE is a show, but considering Locke Downe is my username I'd like to think of a much better name for the show. Considering LockeTalks is my Vlog channel it can be a lot less formal than what I want to make L0CKED0WNE. Now saying all this I don't want any of you to think "OMG! He's changing his normal channel! NOOOO!!!!" Cause I'm not. I just need a name. That's it! What do I call it? You know what I mean? Like how Yathzee has Zero Punctuation, or how Johnny Millennium has "Happy Console Gamer". That's what I want for my channel. A name for the show. So if any of you can help me out I'd greatly appreciate it.

In other news, I'm starting to get over this stupid cold, but it's taking forever! I was off for almost 5 days and every single fuckin day I was sick! I hate life I tell ya. I fuckin hate it. Oh well, what you gonna do? Anyways guys. Until next time.

- Locke Downe

Sick...

SICK...

I know it's not much of a post, but I figured I'd let you guys know why I haven't posted so much recently. Like the title says... I'm a little sick. It's more of a head cold than anything (Thanks Braveworld) but none the less it's irritating. Anyways, at this point I'm at 96.63% finished Grand Theft Auto IV. I'm just wondering if you have to date all of the girlfriends to be able to get to 100%. Does anyone know? Well anyways, aside from that I haven't been up to too much. Working on stories, videos and oh yeah, I got a really crappy haircut! Aside from that not too much has been up. Leave me a comment and let me know what you've been up to lately.

Post 16 - This week

THIS WEEK

This week has been hell. I'm just about to finish a 9-day stretch at work. I'm so tired right now and this new hair-cut I got is really pissing me off! I find I look like Hitler's long lost brother. :( ...but on the bright side, I can finally start wearing hats! Yeah, before my hair cut would never allow me to but now I can. So there you have it. For the most part that's everything that's made up my week so far. I apologize for not posting anything new yesterday and having only this short post today. Tomorrow Josh and I will be getting all 50 Seagulls in GTA: Lost and the Damned. So we might be able to make a video for that, but I make no promises. So anyways guys. Here's to a good upcoming weekend for all.

Post 15 - Youtube problems

YOUTUBE PROBLEMS

Hey guys, sorry but this just another short post. I've been having some issues uploading videos to youtube in the past few days and so has Braveworld and a couple other of my friends. We're hoping that whatever's going on will be dealt with soon, but either way I'm going to try and get up my four part Questions and Answers video today! I'm going to try re-saving it as my old format rather than the new formats I've been using and see if that works.

Aside from that everything's going as usual. Work's been a living nightmare lately but that's just because the schedule never gets done right. Like I said, you pay me more and stress isn't really an issue. Aside from that I hope to hang out with Josh later this week and maybe we'll put together a "Day in the Life" video or something like that. We'll see how we feel that day! He better not bail or I'll cut his balls off. I also hope to hang out with Mandy (Hybrid Phoenix) sometime real soon too so we can get that review done. We also have a bunch of original shorts for Videoslave that we need to get done soon too. I guess we're just waiting for magical new and better equipment to show up. Well, we'll see. Anyways, till next time guys.

Post 14 - Top Ten Fav Video Game Characters

TOP TEN FAVORITE VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS

I find it really hard to pinpoint favorites. I have such a hard time picking favorite games and characters because there's so much I know I haven't gotten a chance to play, and characters that I need to experience..but let's start things off anyways.

I don't think they'll be in any real order.

1) Batman (Arkham Asylum)
I know, I know, he's not REALLY a video game character, but I had way too much fun kicking ass as the dark night in this game. The second one is on my most anticipated list and I just couldn't leave him off the list, so deal with it!

2)Nathan Drake (Uncharted series)
I loveeee playing uncharted for many reasons, gameplay is solid, story is great, overall fun game, but the big one, the awesomeness that is Nathan Drake. He's easilly one of the funniest and most entertaining characters I've ever played, especially when he just says what you're thinking, hilarious, entertaining, perfect.

3)Kratos (God of War)
While he may seem over rated to some people Kratos is just an all around fantastic character. While the game is at heart, a hack & slash, the developing team puts a lot of work into the story which really makes it go the extra mile as a game. And playing Kratos is just, so fun, power of the gods, and detrimental fighting skills, makes playing him a bloody good time. haha, get it? Bloody? Shut up I'm funny...

4) Link (Legend of Zelda)
The wonderful protagonist who never speaks, Zelda's been providing me mass amounts of gaming pleasure since I was a kid. There's not much else to say beyond that. He's just awesome.

5) Megaman (Megaman)
I've loved Megaman from a young age, but I must admit, my favorite version of megaman is from the first 3 megaman Battle Network games. They were some of the first games I got on my Gameboy Advance and I remember wasting full days playing the game and listening to Goldfinger.

6) Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)
When I first saw the Phoenix Wright games, I was a little skeptical, I had no idea that a game about being an Attorney could be so damn fun. Well, they are damn fun and Phoenix is a damn fun character (it helps that he has my name too)

7) Secret Apprentice (Star Wars Force Unleashed)
Now, I've always been a big Star Wars fan, and any of the games that involved Lightsabers were my favorite. Now since the other games allow you to create your own character, and pick your destiny, you can't really use them as character examples, that's where Force Unleashed comes in. I adored this game and assuming the role of dark apprentice was fantastic. As a moral rule I typically always stick to the right side of the law when games allow you to choose between good and evil. This game really gives you the full spectrum, and it's amazing. I've got this game on both PSP and PS3 and they're so different that it keeps the experience totally fresh.

8) Solid Snake (Metal Gear Series)
Now, I've JUST started getting into the Metal Gear series (I know, shame on me) and while I find them challenging, they're also extremely fun and extremely innovative. In turn, Solid Snake is just a great and hilarious character to play, while remaining completely bad ass. I've added him to this list because he's so fresh in my mind as a bad ass and I'm really looking forward to getting deeper into the story.

9) Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)
How could I not? Cloud isn't even a character I would consider amazing, but he is one of the first people I thought of when Corey asked me this question. Whether it be because I know Cloud is HIS favorite character or what, I had to find a place for him on this list. I needed at least one FF character on this list, and Cloud made the cut, followed closely by a few others.

10) Dante (Devil May Cry)
What can I say? Dante is a bad ass, and playing him makes ME feel like a bad ass. His character over all is just a really cool guy with witty remarks and a quick gun. This is a character with personality and he knows it.

Well, That's it then guys, I know it's not the best but I'm horrible at lists. if there's anything you want to question me on, characters you'd like to comment on let me know!

For now, I have a real life sonic in my house that I need to go play with! Till next time!

- Hybrid Phoenix

(Originally Posted on Phoenix Ignition. Written by: Amanda Coneen)
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