Killer Instinct: Bumpers end Saberwulf’s agony

Actually, this has nothing to do with Saberwulf’s suffering at the hands of Orchid in the side-scrolling video game classic Killer Instinct. It also has nothing to do with Orchid flashing her bumpers at the end of a very long combo. It does, however, have everything to do with my reaction to the video below:

Although I laud KIG666’s effort at trashing his opponent with an 80-hit ultimate combo, I have to say that the way he executed the combo was rather, uhmm, dull. It’s repetitive, and nothing reeks mundane more than a repetition of moves. Unfortunately, the limitation on executable moves is the software’s fault, I’m sure.

To highlight my point, here’s a video of Killer Instinct’s Jago dealing the same amount of punishment with an 80-hit ultra combo. Yes, it’s still repetitive, but notice how the player changes tact at the end.

Now, if only I could do that. Haha.

Killer Instinct cheats: Shhhh!

As in all video games, Killer Instinct has its share of cheat codes (Sigh). Fortunately, these codes aren’t really cheats but more of tools to add spice and variety to the game. An example of this is selecting the speed at which the Killer Instinct fighters move (which, by the way, you can’t do any other way).

Here’s a list of some of the most used “cheat codes” for Killer Instinct:

Fight as Eyedol
Yeah, sick and tired of using stock characters to beat ‘em all? Use this key sequence to access big boss Eyedol: Highlight Cinder at the character selection screen then hold right while pressing the following keys—L, R, X, B, Y, A—at the versus screen. How do you know you’ve entered the correct code? Simple. You’ll hear Eyedol’s name being said.

Go random
Want a little variety? Go random! Hold Up and press start at the character selection screen. The game will then give you a random character to play with.

Costume change
Speaking of variety, your character can also start off with a different costume. Just press Up or down while selecting a fighter.

Slow-mo or turbo
Playing at higher speeds may turn on a lot of players (you can set the play speed to turbo by either pressing right and all three punch buttons, right and all three kick buttons, or left and all three punch buttons at the versus screen), but slow motion has its allure. Do this by holding the left button while pressing all three kick buttons.

Nifty, eh?

Image downloaded from jmd online 2.0 and modified by Joel. Killer Instinct, published by Midway for the Arcade and Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Gameboy, was developed by Rareware.

Killer Instinct killer gifs

Like I said in an earlier post about Street Fighter, I love animated gifs, the poor man’s Flash animation. This time ’round, however, Ken Masters and the rest of the Street Fighter gang are out and the nasties of Killer Instinct are in. Check out two of my favorite Killer Instinct animated gifs of Cinder and Saberwulf:

If you can’t get enough animated gifs of Killer Instinct characters, there’s more here.

iPhone 3G Available Now!

Finally! The much anticipated iPhone 3G is available for sale in the United States as well as 21 other countries. People lined up hours if not days ahead of the launch of the iPhone just to be one of the first few people to have their hands on the iPhone.

Not all went well though. According to this CNN Report, staff at an NY AT&T store had trouble activating the iPhones. It took them almost half an hour to activate Kenny Pichardo’s iPhone. Kenny was the first to buy one at that particular store. AT&T blamed the the problems on a glitch with iTune’s software that aides in the activation of the iPhone.

What really surprises me up to now is the level of coverage that the iPhone is getting. It was in almost all the major cable news channels we have locally. It was featured on CNN and BBC. Not to mention the countless blogs all over the internet such as ours. It’s truly a triumph for Apple’s marketing rather than anything else.

Another thing to note is that the iPhone became available for the first time in Japan. In a country where high-tech phones are norm and that people have been exposed to phones that can download music, stream videos and even receive live TV broadcasts, the iPhone still made an impact. Roughly a thousand people still lined up in front of Softbank Corp.’s store to get their hands on iPhones. Proving that it’s not the amount of technology that you can place in a device but it’s how well you design and integrate it’s features and make it easy to use that ultimately draws people to use it.

Some well known journalists have had their hands on iPhone way ahead of us mere mortals. They were able to post reviews of it just before the iPhone went on sale.

Ryan Block from Engadget has his review. He had this to say about the iPhone…

If you’re an avid Symbian, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile / Exchange user, chances are you might think the iPhone 3G is Apple playing catch-up — and you’re not wrong. 3G, GPS, third party apps, enterprise messaging, these are all old hat. But even the would-be iPhone killers being churned out weekly haven’t yet found a way to counter the iPhone’s usability and seamless integration of service and software, desktop and mobile, and media and internet.

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal had this to say about the iPhone during his interview at Yahoo’s Tech Ticker…

The iPhone is “the best, most complete smartphone” on the market and clones such as the Samsung Instinct are a poor substitute,

Walt also wrote a review on his blog.

Apart from the launch of the iPhone, the next big thing is the launch of the App store. I went ahead and checked it out. I downloaded some free software namely AIM and the iTunes remote even if my iPod Touch has not been updated yet. As for this writing the servers of Apple seem to have trouble coping that I can’t get through to it.

A little over 500 apps are now available during the launch of the App store. More will follow in the coming weeks. With this event, Apple has really transformed the iPhone from simply being a smartphone to a certified platform for handheld devices. Some of the apps look wicked awesome. I can’t wait to get my hands on Super Monkey Ball and other games such as that.

I’m really excited to see more and more apps developed for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

With the availability of the iPhone in these countries and with more countries to follow, the iPhone is on target to fast becoming the smartphone to beat. I can’t wait till August. According to the grapevine, that about the time that the iPhone will be made available here in the Philippines. Let’s see what Globe can come up with in terms of plans and pricing.

Are you excited to get your hands on an iPhone? I know I am!

Killer Instinct: Going gaga over Orchid

In the six months that I played Killer Instinct on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System back in the early 1990s, there are only two characters that I mastered—Orchid and Jago.

I like Jago’s moves. He’s pretty easy to control, his skill set being close to that of Ken and Ryu of Street Fighter fame. But Orchid, dear Orchid, takes the cake any time.

Here’s a collection of YouTube videos that best demonstrate Orchid’s abilities:

Ha! Beat those 60-80 ultimate combos! I love this girl!

Killer Instinct: A closer look at the cast

Before we delve into the backgrounds of Killer Instinct’s cast of characters, I think we should first take a look at a brief background story of the game:

Ultratech is a very powerful mega-corporation (entities which, in this future setting, replaced all governments) which organizes a tournament called Killer Instinct. Along with regular participants, experimental creatures created by Ultratech also fight in the tournament. Ultratech also discovers a technology to make bridges between domensions, and to also release from its dimensional prison a two-headed monster called Eyedol, an ancient warrior that was locked away along with his rival.

Whew, that was brief indeed! I don’t even know why Ultratech organized a tournament and why some of the characters decide to join it. Well, that’s why we have this genuine interest to know more about the gang. Let’s go check them out, shall we?

Read more

Killer Instinct: It’s all about combos, baby

If there’s a side-scrolling fighting game that I played more than Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, it’s Killer Instinct, developed by Rare, Midway and Nintendo and released in arcades in 1994.

If you’ve played Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, then playing Killer Instinct should be a breeze for you. In Killer Instinct, like other fighting games, the player controls a character with the goal of beating different opponents in a one-on-one match.

The game, however, has other features that differentiate it from other titles:

A double energy bar. Instead of having to beat an opponent in two rounds, each character has two bars of energy. If a player finishes his or her opponent’s first life bar, the fight stops and resumes, just like a transition between two rounds. The difference is, the winning character gets to keep whatever amount of energy he or she had upon beating the opponent. Nifty, eh?

Automatic combos. I think this feature has already been incorporated in today’s generation of fighting games. Back then, though, it was unique to Killer Instinct. Rather than pressing different buttons to deliver individual attacks that make up a combo, combos in Killer Instinct are automated by assigning a button to a special move.

Finishing moves. This feature is inspired by Mortal Kombat’s fatalities. Each character has at least two moves known as No Mercy, which finishes an opponent in a violent manner. One of these No Mercy moves can be activated at the end of a combo.

Sigh. I wish I played the game in the arcades. Too bad I was only able to beat the crap out of my cousins on the Super Nintendo System version of Killer Instinct.

Here’s a video of the intro of Killer Instinct’s arcade version:

Tom Brady male athlete of the year

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

How does Tom give up Bridget?

Tom Brady may have won the big celebrity award, but he did not let it go to his head.

Yes, he is the superstar quarterback with the golden arm and the sharp football mind. Yes, he is in position to break Peyton Manning’s single season record of 49 touchdown passes. And yes, he is the main reason the New England Patriots are challenging the 1972 Miami Dolphins’ status as the only team to go undefeated for an entire Super Bowl season.

This, however, is what teammates see and respect:

“When you see him here at 6:15 in the morning, lifting weights, watching film and working out, I think that’s not a sign of a guy that’s getting a big head,” safety Rodney Harrison said.

And that is why Brady was both flattered at being selected The Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year, and determined to spread the honor around.

“I play in a team sport,” Brady said. “Everybody I play with is responsible for what each of us accomplishes as individuals and for what we all accomplish as a team.” source

The consummate team player on the consummate team.

Brady has had Read more

Randy Moss is 30, Tom Brady is 30 , will they be champions?

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Raiders? No Way. It was all their fault. Hey, your looking at the greatest player ever!

Going into the off season the Patriots were loaded to the gills. After blowing a huge early lead to the Colts in the playoffs, the New England Patriots have developed that killer instinct again. They want to win it all.

The off season comes and New England begins to fill the few holes they had on their team.

Adalius Thomas was added to a pretty good, but getting older linebacking crew.

Donte Stallworth, ever the deep threat, was added to an anemic receiving crew. Wes Welker was also added to that crew, and also, to be a return man. Throw in the additions of Kyle Brady and Kelley Washington and you have all the makings of an excellent receiving corps.

Another, not so subtle move, Read more

Are You Sitting on the Next Killer Idea?

Let’s say you’ve got the personality to be a perfect entrepreneur (and you’re not built to be a crappy entrepreneur). You’ve also got an idea. Cha ching!

Contrary to what many people will tell you, ideas are not worthless. The argument goes that a business succeeds on execution, and not on the brilliance of the idea. And, that an idea alone is worthless. That’s bollux on so many levels.

But, it is important to validate your ideas before you invest your life savings, quit your job, buy an Aeron chair and get to work.

So how do you validate an idea to make sure it’s a surefire bet?

First off, “surefire bet” is an oxymoron because a bet means there are odds involved, and if there are odds it can’t be surefire. More importantly, even after you validate your idea there’s still going to be risk and no guarantees of success.

Having said that, you can go through fairly formal processes to validate your idea.

The informal way of doing it is fairly simple: Talk to people about it. Tell people your idea and make sure you talk to people you like and don’t like, people you know and don’t know. Find industry experts and industry neophytes. Talk to ideal customers. Talk to potential partners. The more people you talk to, the better. Don’t be shy about this. The biggest mistake you can make at this point is not talking to people about your idea. Hold it too close to your chest and you might as well toss the idea in the garbage.

Of course, you should take a more formal approach which can help with validating the idea and begin to lay the groundwork for a business plan, business structure, etc.

Over at The Chilli they’ve got what they call the Chilli Value Test, which they describe as, “…a framework to help flesh out your thought process, strengthening the idea as well as preparing for the creation of the business plan and the due diligence from potential investors.”

I want to highlight some aspects of their plan related to validating your killer idea:

1. What Problem Are You Solving?
This is as important a question as any, and it’s one of the first things you should ask. Chilli has an interesting way of categorizing problems:

• Are you putting out a fire?
• Are you solving a burning need?
• Are you making life easier, cheaper and faster?

All three are valid problems and solving any of them can result in success. Burning needs trump fires and easier, cheaper and faster though.

2. What Value Are You Adding?
Don’t ever let the word “value” slip too far from your tongue. Adding value ideally means solving major problems, not minor annoyances. Chilli asks, “Can you quantify your value in terms of time, cost or speed?

That’s pretty cut and dry. I’d say value can be added and created in other areas as well. Social value, for example. Are you making the world a better place? There’s more to value than time, cost and speed.

3. Who Is Your Competition?
There’s always competition. Don’t ever go into a meeting with venture capitalists, angel investors or your best friend’s aunt and say, “There’s no competition.” They either won’t believe you or will assume the idea is bad (because there can’t be a market for something with no competition.)

Having accepted that competition exists, don’t panic! In fact, many will tell you that you should completely ignore the competition. I wouldn’t, because you can gain a lot of insight from them, but I also wouldn’t focus on them. Your killer idea has competition, but that’s OK. The competition may help further shape your idea into an even better one.

Is That All There Is To It?
Not quite. The above points will help you validate your idea, but in the end there’s going to be a gut decision that has to be made … “gut check time” … where you decide the idea is worth pursuing or not. Instincts and guts. I’ve never met an entrepreneur that isn’t teeming with them, and who relies on them constantly.

The key is that you definitely need to validate your idea. When an idea smacks you in the middle of the forehead and springs you out of your midnight stupor, don’t go crazy. Think about it, examine the idea in detail, let it stew in your brain, talk to people and plan.

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