2010 Sucks: My Look Back At 2010: The 2010 Edition!

by thephantomnaut

Whether it was gaming, journalism, or whatever, I really liked this year. Yeah I lied about hatin with the title and all but onward to my dumb retrospective blog about a year that's filled with damn numbers, baby shaking, Daigo Umehara getting beat by America, and GDLK MURDER FACE TOKIDO. DAT SHIT WAS CRAZY Mah top 10 games of 2010 More details on my list page . Red Dead Redemption Super Street...

DAT SHIT WAS CRAZY

Mah top 10 games of 2010

More details on my list page.

Journalism

When I joined Giant Bomb back in 2009, I had some interest on the main guys were doing. As time rolled on by, I began to pursue the field of journalism with focus on the video gaming industry. While in college, I saw the official campus publication and then enrolled for the class during the Spring semester of this year. At first, I felt very intimidated on how the school's newspaper is structured. I then discovered many different aspects in journalism like neutrality, style, judgement, and story construction. Into the Spring semester I served as an almost jack of all trades staff member who can write stories, copy edit some articles, help construct the physical print copies, and post articles online. I returned to the Fall semester and while not positioned as an editor, I served as a reliable member once again during our production cycles.

While participating in my school's newspaper, I also volunteered for a small video games site. I mainly served as news writer, trying to do similar things you might see on Joystiq or Kotaku. When assembling news stories, I use what I have learned in my school newspaper to make more effective articles even if the viewer count might be super low. Some articles I made might have been a day late from Kotaku but I was likely seeing the development of a situation before making the story. I also got to review some video games as well but not as much that can probably conflict with school work. Recently though I was honorable dismissed from the site due to regional differences (I live in America, the site is mainly Australian).

I am now on a journey to continue my dream as working as a writer for a popular video gaming site. I did hear about the internship program a while back. When I saw the post, I knew for sure that I want to be part of the program and sent in my application. With January coming real soon, I am wondering what is happening.

San Diego Comic-Con 2010 International

I was very happy that I was able to go from Sacramento to San Diego for their 2010 Comic-Con for all four days. Me and my sister got to our hotel when their Preview Night was in effect (after seeing people carrying Alien and other promotional material). The climate over there was unexpected. San Diego was most of the time cloudy and cold while the most of SoCal seemed exposed to full on sun during the plane ride.

I didn't know who was John Drake at the time but he did an acceptable yet funny growl when one group was playing Lamb of God. Day one was very hectic as the line to get our passes extended beyond the convention center. Good thing it went super fast as they allowed people in. Once they opened the main floor, it was a bit easier to navigate (just a bit). I remember the first thing I got over there was shirts from Rooster Teeth (Grifball and My zombie plan). I then moved on towards where most of the video games were happening. It was cool to play some game in advanced including Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer for the first time alongside one of the many Ezio cosplayers in the convention while hearing people shout and do the spirit bomb motion at the Funimation booth nearby. Also playing so much Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was a blast.

With Twisted Pixel's Michael Wilford! YO BRO. I also tried out Comic Jumper and I knew I was gonna love this game. I talked a bit to Michael Wilford about the game as well as the guys at Giant Bomb. It's fun to make fun of Brad. :)

That day I was wearing my Giant Bomb logo t-shirt I won from the Halo 3: ODST contest and I met up with another fan there. Remember the Surstromming Video Thing? At the 0:44 mark there is a kid next to Brad. He gave them drinks from Thailand in a mailbag video. I unexpectedly met up with this kid (I FORGOT YOUR NAME!) at Comic-Con before going back to Thailand after day one. I found out he was an exchange student and was living in San Francisco for a bit. He has a pretty near perfect American accent. Hey dude if you are reading this, WHUT UP BRO?
My smile sucks. Michael "Carmine" Gough was also Dan Smith in Killer7. Day two was another interesting day starting off with playing UNO with two girls while eating Rice Krispies cereal in line. The daywas filled with gaming at the main floor too including trying out the PlayStation Move, Killzone 3 in 3D, and a special Marvel-skinned demonstration of LittleBigPlanet 2. The most notable part of that day though was seeing both panels of Twisted Metal with David Jaffe and Gears of War 3 with almost all of the main cast (sans John DiMaggio unfortunately). I got to see the Lester Speight aka COLETRAIN!!!! I also seen the voice of Carmine (Michael Gough) who was torn with the battle of Clayton's fate. I got to shake hands with him along with a picture!

Days three and four were more or less the walking around the main floor although it was awesome to go to the Street Fighter panel where trolling and hype shit was happening. I befriended another kid from San Francisco and we were playing so much Halo: Reach at the Xbox panel. Funny to note that someone from THQ I believed tried to put Red Faction: Armageddon flyers in the Xbox 360 kiosks but almost got himself in trouble as he got caught. We also played Gears of War 3's Beast Mode: KANTOS THE LOCUST HEDGEHOG.

Mass Effect 2: The Suicide Mission team. There were a lot of things I missed including playing Rock Band 3 (the group before me and others were the last of the whole show), trying out the Kinect for the first time, the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and general Capcom panels, Norm from Tested, etc. Nonetheless it was an enjoyable experience and I have plans to return next year! I hope to see you guys there too!

Also don't see the young anime cosplayers sitting down in one spot looking bored. YOU WILL BE DISCOURAGED. I also saw a guy from a group of Spartans and ODST guys dancing to music that's playing in his helmet, shit was funny.

For more photos: Day 0, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4

Street Fighter

When I was at Comic-Con, I bought my first arcade stick for cheap at the Mad Catz booth. When I got home I soon bought Super Street Fighter IV. It would be my first major fighting game after departing from the genre (casually) with Street Fighter Alpha 3 back in the late 1990s.

I initially performed less than decent and seemed to do better when time passed. When I went to my first tournament, I was proven wrong and was destroyed by some really good players. I felt disgusted and discouraged but I used what I endured to my advantage. I went from bad flowchart scrubbing with Ken to a pretty acceptable rushdown Gouken player. I am still practicing today and now every time I play against someone (online or offline, win or lose), it's always fun.
My arcade stick.
I have also engaged myself into the Shoryuken community and look at what's up in their forums. I usually check out their Tech forums and see others' arcade sticks and other shit like that. I have already modded my stick with full Sanwa parts. I might get another stick soon which will be used to play on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 so I don't have to borrow someone's stick when tournaments at Sacramento are usually PS3 setups.

I have also played a lot of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. That game feels so different to Super IV. Seems more tactical than any Street Fighter game now. I can't wait for 3rd Strike to arrive on Xbox Live as I might be playing that more than Super IV. I do have interest in trying out Super IV's Arcade Edition, with the Bay Area having units of the game, I wanna try em out!!! DAMN YOU SAC TOWN. YOU HAVE NO ARCADES.

Giant Bomb Wiki

Wiki editing has been something I do in my free time. With school, the windows of opportunity are very slim. When I do have the chance, I find one that just seems off I revise it. Most are minor but some I did were major. The ones I remember the most include revising the plot of Modern Warfare 2. When I helped construct the plot line shortly after release, I wanted to make it seem reasonably full yet have it sort of brief; similar to Wikipedia's entry. When I returned to look at the page again, the plot changed to personally an overly detailed and enlarged piece when most of the stuff featured can be simplified while still detailed. I reedited it once again and might soon fix some tiny details in the future; although it's not my priority.

Another major edit which I just finished hours ago is the character page on Ryu. I thought it was unclean and disorganized. I did a major revision including adding his storyline in the canon as well as some impacts including the Sheng Long joke. Not perfect but at least it's not as messy as it previously was.

Yo dawg, I am done. Happy new year!

I made this shit before Christmas I believe.