IRAGINATION blog

Happy New Year 2013

Hello everybody. This year I could not go to the Calle 6 de Marzo, so I just looked around my neighborhood. I liked the change, since doing the same thing over and over again gets repetitive.
The streets were pretty stocked with several Años Viejo as usual. You don’t get to see the more elaborated ones but the sample was quite representative. The availability was not short of the most commented local event of this year, Barcelona’s championship. Barcelona S.C. is a local team from Guayaquil, do not confuse it with Spain’s Barcelona F.C.

Barcelona S. C. has the largest fan base in Ecuador, but it hasn’t been champion for 14 years. Depending of who you talk, this is a really serious business that might get you in some heavy debates. Hardcore fans have been subject of jokes and mockery as the other teams managed to get championships and even better results on international events. Imagine this, kids who were fans of Barcelona out of tradition, because their parents were, never have seen their team win a championship, and you have to wonder what kept them loyal to a team with such a bad performance. Either the tales of glory from the early years of Barcelona told by their parents, or a pretty good marketing effort from the team itself have managed to keep the team relevant. Take your guess.
After 14 years of bad results, the rival teams were really to celebrate Barcelona’s “Quinceñera”. This is a special celebration girls have for their 15th birthday, with pink fancy dresses and dance, but in this case it was a taunt to Barcelona entering its 15th year of failure.

However 2012 was a brilliant year for Barcelona. It didn’t only manage to win the first half of the national tournament, but the second half too, even before the tournament was over, and with no need of a final match. This simply had no precedent. It also delivered some of the most humiliating defeats to its traditional and direct rivals. Opposing teams were not laughing anymore. And their players scored some of the most beautiful and exciting goals of the tournament. This was like a rebirth and even the most cynical fans were excited and once more everybody wanted to be part of the celebrations, go to the stadium and buy shirts.

All in all, it was a pretty positive experience, for the fans, for the tournament, for the economy, even for the rival teams I’d dare to say. Just perfect! Now I can only hope they can keep it up and keep their place as “Idolo del Ecuador”.

Happy New Year!

Años Viejos 2011

I’m, in a hurry now, but at least I’m posting these.

Countdown to 2012 begins. See ya later!

Mega Man X for Wii

I’ve been keeping an eye for this since I saw it released in Japan’s Wii Store 2 weeks ago, as Rockman X. So yesterday when I returned home and saw it on the store it was an instant buy. Well, what a coincidence, I’m planning to release Mega Man X as a playable character this week too, so I felt I should do my part and show my support to one of my favorite SNES games. I hope Capcom figures it out.

It’s incredibly hard for me to get games this fast because of distance, and somebody here thought it would be a good idea penalize with ridiculous amounts of taxes the import of anything related with video games. At least I can get Virtual Console games at the price everybody is paying, and instantly. Now well, of course I’m busy so yesterday I just beat the intro stage and Chill Penguin. Today I just got the Armor part, so I’m in the midst of Sting Chamaleon’s stage. And that’s it, I guess I’ll be doing this all these days, playing by little increments. That’s the best I can do, but fortunately the Wii’s SNES emulation stores the state of the game when you leave and is a breeze to resume gaming anytime later.

So Capcom, can we keep up the pace and release Mega Man X2 and Mega Man X3 too? I’d love to have them available soon. I’m a extremely lazy person when it comes to handle media, I want them at the click of a Wii channel, now!

Mega Man X: Official Complete Works

Well, what a nice surprise, walk in and find out that my copy of Mega Man X: Official Complete Works has arrived. Honestly I completely forgot about it, I ordered it back in December 18, and it arrived today at January 6, just in time for Día de Reyes (um, Epiphany holiday?).

Usually I’d have read it from cover to cover in one seat, but I was too busy. I did it only up to the X4 part. Pretty cool stuff. And I really love how the programmers are never mentioned by name, but just as the “software guys” or “the programmer”. Yeah, it’s not the most glamorous job, but come on.

Well, finally I have a complete list of stage enemy characters. I’d like to rename the current ones in use in Bass Abyss, but that would take too much time, and probably break old maps. I’ll just save that for any new enemy addition.

Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch

I can’t let you pass this up. If you’re a fan of classic Mega Man games and first person shooters like Doom, you can’t miss this game. Mega Man 8bit challenge is a complete Doom mod using classic Mega Man characters.

Installation is a snap. Just download some zip file, unpack and play. That’s a big plus. And of course, it’s free.

For multiplayer, just follow the instructions on the included zip file and you’re good to go.

I played Mega Man 8bit challenge until my arm started to hurt so gameplay wise it’s pretty solid, let alone the hilarity of absurd looking Mega Man characters killing each other, Doom style. Give it a try and have fun.