Mallard Mayhem

Well, looking back on this blog I've decided to create a new one. This blog has too many posts that I consider immature and certainly too many that contain my horrible voice. I've also grown tired of the name 'DuckyAtePaste' (which is why I've changed email names).

I've also switched over to Wordpress. It looks better, it's easier to post with, it's upgradable, etc. It even shows all the page views on my administration page quickly and easy-to-read, including how many visitors per day, what they looked at, how they found it (it even shows their search terms if they found it by Google). It's just plain more advanced and better than Blogger.

I'm hoping you guys take lightly to this. It doesn't mean I'm deleting this blog or I'm stopping updates. In fact, I'll *hopefully* write more now considering it's much easier to post and track views. Basically, it's DuckyAtePaste v2.0.

So, without further ado, I'll give a link to the blog:
http://mallardmayhem.wordpress.com/

Happy trails!

GH:WT Review

Hello readers, guess what monsieur nerdy fanboy got in the mail yesterday? Guitar Hero World Tour!!!

That's right, I purchased Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii (dual guitar pack). The only other Guitar Hero I have is Guitar Hero II for the PS2.

FIRST LOOK:
As I ripped the box to shreds to get to the game, er, quietly and patiently cut the box open, the two guitars that came with it looked very nice. I had to inspect the great new guitar. The touch-sensitive slide bar fit in very nicely with the look of the guitar, and the star power/- and + buttons looked better as well. They don't look like knobs this time, they look more like a bridge. I really don't see the need for the analog stick though, it looks a little out of place. I immediately notice the whammy bar fit your hand better.

I took a look at the second guitar that came in the package and discovered it was really just a Guitar Hero III guitar, no slide bar. I also discovered that the game also came with Guitar Hero III the game itself as well (which I haven't even opened). Pretty nice considering I didn't buy it, and also means that those of you who did, you can just buy just the game and the GH3 guitars will work.

SETUP:
As those of you who have it/researched it, as opposed to Rock Band 2, you have to place Wiimotes in the guitars to play. You basically take off a part of the back of the guitar like a battery case, plug it in to the guitar like a nun-chuck controller, and cram it all in to the hole. At first it's difficult to stuff the Wiimote in there, but once you get the hang of it it's not too bad. It is quite annoying that you have to take out the Wiimote and select the disc channel and then cram it back in every time you start the game, but there's not too much the developer could have done anyways.

SETLIST/MUSIC STUDIO:
The setlist itself is pretty good, featuring songs like 'Living on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi, 'What I've Done' by Linkin Park, 'The Middle' by Jimmy Eat World', etc. I won't list the whole setlist because you can just look it up on Wikipedia. I obviously had to cheat and look at a few of the bonus songs on Quick Play, and there were quite a few good ones as well. The game also has downloadable content, which unfortunately, you have to pay for. Basically every song on there is 200 Wii Points, which for you non-Wii users, is about $2.00.

There is also a music creator and GHTunes, which will really allow the game to be replayable. Unfortunately, the music that the game generates sounds only slightly better than a MIDI file, maybe even worse. Sometimes the notes get cut off, and repeated notes sound like a record skipping, as said in IGN's review of GHWT. I did manage to play around in the recording studio, which was pretty fun. There are two parts to the music studio, one is just a live recording area where you play whatever you want on your guitar and it records it, and the other is a more advanced one where you can record it step by step. I really wouldn't recommend using the basic recording thing, it's difficult to figure out how to record and hard to keep on beat. GHMix (the advanced recording thing) is a little difficult to work using a guitar, but you can figure it out pretty fast. It also has copy and paste functions, which became really helpful in my song. It also lets you create guitar, rythym guitar, bass, drums, and even keyboard, although it fails to have microphone capabilities (which I can understand). If you want to play the song I created, search 'Drugs' on GHTunes (on the Wii of course), it'll be by 'Hardly Working.' My song is difficult because you can't use hammer-ons and pull-offs throughout the entire song. It is possible, I finished it on Expert, although it took a few tries (the lead guitar part is accidentally on rythym guitar, oh well).

QUICK PLAY MODE:
I had to start off playing a few songs to try out the new engine, slider bar, and of course the new songs. I had to calibrate the lag first, because I can't play Guitar Hero without about 60 milliseconds of lag. I don't know why. I was halfway storming my way through What I've Done (an easier song) on Hard when I noticed that the whammy bar falls down. No, it doesn't fall off the guitar, but it turns until it is facing away from you so you can't reach it when you need it. This is highly annoying, as you have to hold the whammy bar in your hands to keep it from turning away from you. I quickly tilted the guitar like I usually do in Guitar Hero II to activate starpower, then it didn't activate. I brought the guitar to a 90 degree angle and about 5 seconds later it activated starpower, although I had already broke my multiplier. The starpower button is hard to press as well, it needs a really firm push in the middle to activate which is difficult to do during complicated parts of a song. It's not any better on the GH3 guitar either.

The HUD or whatever is pretty sharp looking. The starpower isn't as obvious as it was in Guitar Hero II, instead it shows up in crystal like shapes. Just play the game or watch YouTube videos, I don't think I can explain it. I don't really have any problems with it though.

There are also 'set lists' which means instead of just selecting a song and playing it, you select several songs and play them in a row. I really don't see the need for this, but it's pretty cool I guess.

MULTIPLAYER:
Multiplayer mode is actually pretty cool. I had my friend come over to test out the band mode, where I played bass and he played guitar. It's a pretty solid try, although I doubt it compares to Rock Band. IGN's review complained that it's difficult to see when somebody is failing, but I can pretty much tell when my friend's highway is blinking red. It may be because it was just a 2-player game, not a 4-player.

The game also has online multiplayer functions. I quickly registered my other friend in my friends list (it does not use the Wii's friend list) and started a few songs. I was disappointed to found out that you cannot choose your difficulty level after the song has been selected, which really sucks because I can play Expert on some songs while I can't even play Hard on others. It also isn't obvious how to select your difficulty, instead of just selecting it at the start as with Quick Play and Career mode, you have to go into Preferences and set it. If you don't have any friends to play with, you can also just use the matchmaking function which means it just draws some other random person who's trying to matchmake and plays it. I left halfway through playing though because I didn't know how to switch difficulties yet.

CAREER MODE:
I don't really like the career mode in this game. Instead of just choosing a song and playing it and unlocking more like in the previous Guitar Hero games, you play gigs and you have to play two or three songs in a row. It also doesn't give you a choice if you want to play an encore, you just have to. I didn't really look too much at it, I only played one or two gigs then cheated to get the bonus songs.

MISCELLANEOUS:
Menus/interface:
The interface of Guitar Hero isn't too great, it looks nice but it can be confusing. For example, the tutorials are in 'Training' under 'Quick Play.' What's up with that? If I wanted to learn a tutorial, I wouldn't got to Quick Play first. I really don't see why Training is in Quick Play. There are also a few other things out of place as well. Then when you exit a song in Training mode, it doesn't take you back to the set list, it takes you back to choosing what parts you want to play of the song you JUST played. Look, if I had wanted to try again at the song, I would have selected 'Change Song Parts' or whatever, not 'Continue.'

Customization:
GHWT has extremely high levels of customization, which is really good. You can create your own rockstar, and the customization features on that are comparable to the Sims. Really. You can even customise your guitar to the fret board wood and spacer type.

Of course, not everything is free. Once you earn money doing gigs, you can buy new clothes and accesories for your character. It's pretty simple really, and you earn quite a lot. I got a lot of money, probably enough for an expensive shirt.

Cheating:
The cheat mode is pretty good in this game. Instead of finding some secret hidden place if you want to activate a cheat, the cheat screen is just right in the Options menu. Instead of entering some random 16-number code EVERY time you want to cheat, you can select previous cheats you have entered in and toggle them off or on. For example, if I for some reason didn't want all of the bonus songs in Quick Play, I could just go to the cheat screen and toggle it off. Simple as that.

Mii Freestyle:
Although pretty cool, this has no point at all. Basically, you take Miis you have created and go to this little room. You then just jam on the guitar. You can also earn 'trading cards' or whatever by doing patterns the game suggests. There are basically 9 patterns the game suggests, and you have to tilt your guitar up and down to see them all, as they only show up in groups of threes.

I do find that it's way too easy to sound cool in this minigame thing. I can hold down the orange fret and strum, and I'm playing the solo from Jordan. It does sound pretty cool to strum all five frets at once though.

I also forgot to mention that there is no point in earning the trading card things it gives you. No money, no unlockables. Nothing. I think I'll just stick to playing Wii Music to do freestyle.

OVERALL:
Although this game has it's obvious flaws, it's still really entertaining and replayable. I would probably give it an 9/10.

If you want to friend me on Guitar Hero World Tour (for the Wii), email me and we can swap codes.

OH YEAH!! HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYBODY!

New Labels

Sorry for the triple post here.

I admit, I've been lazy over the past blog posts, I never added labels. Well, I added labels to every post today.

- 'g-rated' means it is pretty okay for everybody. Some of the 'g-rated' posts are mildly violent, but it's just stick figures.

- 'observational' means an observation on life, like the serving size test.

- 'best posts' I saved what I think are my best posts on the blog.

The others are pretty self explanatory.

So, for instance, if you would like to see videos I have made, you would click on the little 'video' label on the side of the site.

Also, it's the tuleyide, no, yuletide season, I encourage you to look at my wishlist that I created last year. It's actually pretty funny.

Sorry...

Sorry for the no updates last bitter end of school and all. I have a cool post coming up, I just got to upload some pictures, which I won't do now because I have to get up and go to school tomorrow. Just to let you all know I'm still alive.

- Ducky

(I have some cool movies to show you too :) )

(Oh no, I'm using smilies!! :o )

Randomocity

People think they are so healthy because they eat vegetables. Hate to break it to ya, but:

VEGGIES AREN'T VERY NUTRITIOUS WHEN YOU GLOMP THEM IN RANCH!


On a unrelated note, I got an e-mail containing a link to a blog containing several cool slideshows, and I encourage you to check it out (note, I have not looked at all the content on the site, although what I saw was pretty cool).

Here's a cool slideshow about 3D chalk art:


Make Your Own Slideshow | More Slideshows

Hey guys!

If you still remember, I'm not dead. School work has increased even more, and I just got a tetanus shot a couple of days ago (healed quickly).

I really have nothing to say, other than I am not dead.

Sorry guys!

I've been such a loser at a loser hobby of writing blogs! Imagine that!

I'll post more often from now on.

And burritos will totally rule the world.

Burritos?

Nobody reads my blog. I keep forgetting to post anyway. I'll try to post more.

Well, I'm about to record a new song I wrote (by Bootman *hehehe*), so that should make it alright.

Oh, and 15cowdays, burritos will rule the world, not eggs.

I admit I edited that one.

I Am Legend Review

Hey guys, just got back from I Am Legend. It was frikkin scary at parts, I don't care if the critics were bashing it for crap CG. I was scared. Shut up I'm totally macho.

Spoiler pool ahead, just so you know.



I Am Legend has about the stupidest ending ever. I read the book's ending online and it was better. In the movie, Robert Neville finds out he is not the last man on earth. Ugh. Then he kills himself for no reason, when he could have easily just thrown the grenade and got in the bomb shelter thing. The dark seekers could apparently break through his roof and get into his house, but they couldn't break through some safety glass. It also explains that the virus doesn't like the cold, but that apparently has nothing to do with anything. First off, the dark seekers' body temperature was already like 106. Second off, when the Neville family is trying to get away, it is during Christmas, but the virus seems to spread just as quickly and still spreading airborne. Anyways, the first while of the movie was good. Character developments on Robert was very well acted by Will Smith. I found the first three fourths very interesting.

Yeah, my finger hurts now (I scraped it up horribly), so I'm gonna leave you be.

'Snappy Comebacks'

I put it in quotations because I'm totally being sarcastic.

Here are some comebacks I really did hear. From the same person. For real.

"Why are you hanging around me, if you hate and disagree with everything I say?"
"Well, I'll get out the sledge hammer-"
(I interrupted)"Yeah, so I can ward you away."
"You probably couldn't even lift it!"

(He was wearing a shirt that looked like a piece of paper was stuck to it saying 'Save the forest, no more homework!')
"You know how ironic that shirt is?"
"I'm going to staple your face!"
Wowee. Great.

I have to put a comeback I came up with. It's too funny.

So he was being a dishface and hanging around me and my friends. So we asked him:
"Hey, dude, who do you like?"
He was pausing, so I took the advantage of the timing and said:
"Clayton!"
Sometimes I really think he's gay.

Okay, this isn't from the same kid, but this is a really stupid comeback I heard.

We keep joking about this kid drinking soda, 'sodaholic.' He didn't really care, or at least we thought we didn't.
"Yeah, that's right. I drink soda. Hear me, third grader?"
Okay, first of all we're the exact same height. Second off my IQ is much higher than his. Trust me.

Christmas shopping time! If you haven't seen it already, check out my totally killer wishlist!

Guitar Hero

As I was playing John the Fisherman on Hard and Heart-Shaped Box on Expert (yes, I do like to brag about those!!) I was thinking. Yeah. That's right.

Why don't they make a Bass Hero? Or like, Bass Master? I'm thinking of making one with GameMaker, but it's a rather large project. I know Guitar Hero features a Bass option in the Training section, but the controllers are the same and you can't play during a concert. And yes, I have heard of Rock Band. I would get it, I mean since I already have a guitar, but I'm saving for a new TV, and depending on what I get from Christmas money, I probably won't get it.

Why did I post this? Mainly just to brag that I can play Guitar Hero decently.

Boring - Mini Golf Demo

I'm making a mini golf game, so yeah. It will work on most XP's, and it SHOULD work on Vista. It would probably run 98 and up or so.

Here's the download link:
Linkage!!

I got inspired by a mini golf game made with the same program I use (GameMaker) called Mini-Golf Pro. It rocks and is a lot better. Here is S64's game: More Linkage!!

Drake and Josh: I can't believe I didn't noticed this!

I was watching Drake and Josh , and it cut to the movie theater. Being a reader of the Sneeze and aware that Steve is friends with Dan Schneider (most known to me for 'Ricky' in Better Off Dead), and that Dan Schneider created the show, I never really put the two apart. The Premiere (the movie theater) always has funny fictional movies playing, like 'Bathtub of Blood.' I just noticed that on the Great Doheny episode, it displays this on the movie theater:

Hehe. I didn't really need all the much explaining.

I also circled 'Hungry Girl,' because it is a reference to site dedicated to helping women stay fit. I'm guessing he put this in because he married the founder and president of the site.

Well, I'm all good now. I don't know why I posted this, it isn't witty or funny. I just noticed it.

-Ducky

Boring Post

I'm not dead. I was, but now I'm a zombie! A lame one, for I have a blog.

Yeah, I have a cool thing to add to my blog soon, but not now, as it is 4:50 in the morning (really).

An Open Letter to my Reader(s)

Dear reader(s),

Hey dude(s)! I hope you all are enjoying me blog, it sure is fun to write. Unfortunately, I don't have much material to put on here. I currently have a couple of funny ideas, I just haven't finished them. It is way late at night right now, I'm very tired.

I started this as a daily blog, but I ran out of material. I am now trying the three-day approach, but I'm not sure if that will make it.

Today I spent the entire day playing the Sims 2. With all my video games, it's an on-again off-again relationship. Lots of revisited games are NoLimits, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and the Sims.

Man, I could ramble on about video games for hours. Like how cool Call of Duty 4 looks. *Homer Simpson drool* Oh crap, I have to stop the boring video game ramble.

I've been thinking of making a DuckyAtePaste game with Rubber Ducky, Bootman, and Weasel. Unfortunately I don't have any ideas whatsoever what to do.

It's ten minutes to midnight, hoh boy. I could make up some great Bootman lines right now.

Why the heck am I making so many frickin' paragraphs? There's no real reason too. Why do we even have paragraphs, I ask? Well, I guess to tell between each subject. Like, if I were to start talking about video games again, I should make a new paragraph. Speaking of video games, I wish I had a Wii. Oh, whoops.

I wish I had a Wii. Those things look wicked awesome. From what I hear on the ol' internet, PS3 sucks. Sucks through a straw. Hehe. I need to go to bed.

Well, I'm off to go postpone sleep by playing video games.

-Rubber Ducky

I'm 3 years old! (jk)

Sorry I haven't updated the last couple of days, I've been too wrapped up in my BIRTHDAY! w00t!

I got the Simpsons Game for a present, and I've been playing it for long periods of time. I'm on a level (or episode) were I have to defeat the Lard Lad Donut Boy. I have a PS2, and it is soo fun! It mixes my favorite four things: puzzles, beating up video game people, platforming, and the Simpsons. I even love the graphics, if you think that's weird. It's hecka funny, I've laughed several times at it. The only thing that sucks is the camera control, it points in the wrong direction during battle numerous times, causing you to do something dumb like walk off a cliff or fall during a Bartman glide. But I for serious recommend getting this game.

-Ducky

Hey guys!

Another addition to my blog! I have come up with names for characters on my Blog. The stick figure with the boot on his head as seen in 'Informal Meeting' is named Bootman, I actually created him from my voice I did in the third grade. Long time no see. I, am just a regular stick figure. But if I get killed or seriously injured that' not me. I don't hurt myself unless it's funny and fitting. Oh yeah and if it's not dangerous. The girl I like, and for personal purposes I am calling Mallard. I probably won't mention her too much, but no I am not gay. I repeat, I am not gay. Surprise? I also created a character I named Weasel, because nobody really has empathy for him and he's an outcast. It's like a stick figure Charlie Brown. I'm not sure on the character design for Weasel, but I sure have a voice for him. Why the crap can't I post audio clips, Blogger? Anywho, back to blog business. I fooled around with my blog site today and added some new stuff, like the Die gif and the new welcome message. Well, I've got some stuff to do. That concerns eating donuts.