EVO 2015 | My thoughts as a first time viewer. Day 1 REVIEW

This weekend the most popular fighting games had their biggest tournament in the world. That tournament is EVO. An Annual Tournament where thousands of people around the globe show up to test their skills and to become the best in the world in their respective games. Friday was Day 1 and has probably the most variety between EVO's six stream accounts. Games that were concluding the following day had to accomplish more in Day 1 than others. All the main events and finals are on the main EVO account which is actually the 2nd EVO account SRKEVO1. Street Fighter was on the main stream/stage for majority of the the first Day, Followed by Persona 4 Arena Finals, and concluding with more Street Fighter. 

As a Smash Streamer and supporter I watched more of Smash Bros. Melee on SRKEVO2 and Smash Bros Wii U on SRKEVO4. All pools were friday. Melee had a rocky start with audio and smash 4 took the most views for the first 2 hours. A few upsets came later and well..it was amazing.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric - Written Review

Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric Boomed alright..and not in a good way

Sonic Boom sub-series of Sonic the Hedgehog, released last week. The Show started off great, the games did not. To most sonic fans it wasn't a surprise. What WAS surprising however, was how unfinished the Wii U game "Rise of Lyric" was. I was watching one of my favorite speed runners play through the game for the for the first time immediately when it came out last Tuesday. The Frame Rate was choppy and unstable. The Characters are talking way too much in the game. The dialogue is great but when you here it every 5 minutes it get's downright annoying. After his stream he had a good idea of how bugging the game was, so naturally finding a infinite jump shouldn't be that hard. And it wasn't, within 5 minutes after DarkspinesSonic found an infinite jump that can sequence break huge parts of the game. Thus proving how broken it is. 

Infinite Height Exploit by DarkspinesSonic

This is not a game you really need to play to see that it's bad. It's still playable, but DO NOT buy this game with the preconceived notions that this is a Sonic game. It is not. It's just a explorative, open-world,  3D plattformer with Sonic characters. As glitchy as the game is, I can say it probably would have done better if it wasn't a sonic centered game. However it is and it adds some elements of Sonic but not the elements that define Sonic. The game is already being called Sonic 14. With 3 years development time and a decent budget this game has no excuse for this. It's probably worse that Sonic 06 due to the fact that there is almost no enjoyment out of the game to make you ignore its faults. It's boring, bleak, and graphically is behind the times. This game made me want to play 06 and the Were-hog. I never knew that was possible but apparently Sonic is in the dark age again. I hope Sega let's more talented developers handle the sequel if we even get one.

Rating 4/10

Great Dialogue, Great Acting, Boring Story that explains nothing, Horrible programing, and to top it off, I got no SONIC in my Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.

Amazon Buys Twitch and why you should be happy

A few days ago Amazon bought Twitch for $970 Million Dollars. Unlike Google, Amazon respects Twitch and doesn't want to change any thing. Twitch's CEO stated:

Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.

 To read more from the official press release click this link 

http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/08/a-letter-from-the-ceo-august-25-2014/

Marathon's Galore: Update on recent marathons

Sonic-A-Thon Raises Over 20 Thousand Dollars. All the donation incentives were met and all the bonus games were played. One can only wonder what will happen next year. One thing is certain. It's going to be a great experience.

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The Sonic Center Marathon went off as a success also. However, I was unable to check all of the see all of the games. I don't know how much they raised at the moment.

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The Next Marathon I caught the least of was Monkey Madness: an Ape Escape Speed Running Marathon.

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The last marathon I followed a good bit of. It started at the end of the Sonic-A-Thon. I'm talking of course about SAGE 2014. The Sonic Amateur Hacking Contest. A lot of amazing games were shown off by some of the most avid sonic players. Some from The Sonic Center,  some from The sonic Stadium, some from Hellfire Comms, BrainScratch Comms, 

Sonic-A-Thon raises Over 11,000 in first half!

Sonic-A-Thon raises over $11,000. Last year the Zelda-A-Thon Raised $9,000 Dollars. During the first half they surpassed their previous recored. Johnny and NTom are the highlights of the marathon. 

While Digi and Donnie are doing well. They are skilled and Digi can make a great combination with whoever he streams with. 

However the best combo of streamers is by far Johnny and Ryan. They are hilarious when they are together. I think Ryan is Jonny's best co-commentator partner. Donnie took the world by storm with his amazing impersonations .....? 

Johnny's stream gave birth to new memes like "Cream the Rabbi" and "Local Fox (Tails) Ruins Everything" 

My favorite stream by far is the Sonic 3 & Knuckles run last night. Again Jonny and Ryan are an amazing combination.

Let the next half begin!

http://hfc-marathons.co.uk/

Twitch Changes a bunch of it's policies. Streamers blame Google for the recent change.

Twitch Official Logo

Yesterday August 6th, 2014 Twitch announced on their blog that they are changing the way there past broadcast/ archived Broadcast will be handled. Broadcast will no longer be saved forever. Regular users only have 3 days to download it or export it to YouTube. Partnered and Turbo users are allowed to have their videos on twitch for 60 Days. Twitch has also partnered with Audible Magic, a program closely connected to the DMCA. Twitch staff stated:

Screen capture of Wiki edit on Twitch's Wiki Page

"We’ve partnered with Audible Magic, which works closely with the recorded music industry, to scan past and future VODs for music owned or controlled by clients of Audible Magic. This includes in-game and ambient music. When music in the Audible Magic database is detected (“Flagged Content”), the affected portion of the VOD will be muted and volume controls for that VOD will be turned off. Additionally, past broadcasts and highlights with Flagged Content are exportable but will remain muted." 

Twitch Users aren't very happy with the news. Current coverers of twitch news believes that all of the changes are proof that google has bought twitch. "Justin.TV" was also shut down yesterday. The owners stated that they wanted to remove Justin.TV to focus more on twitch. 

I'm hoping for the best. However, I dont like where this is headed. Other Streamers have already retaliated. Yesterday someone edited the wiki. I must say the edit was hilarious but was removed an hour later. Luckily, I screen captured it. 

I will continue to look into the matter

Sonic-A-Thon in Progress. Check it out!

http://hfc-marathons.co.uk

The Logo/ Thumbnail for the Marathon

Check it out by clicking the link. Sonic-A-Thon: Raising money for a good cause.