Credit for Sprites Used on this Blog

It occurred to me while I was wasting my time making that goofy background yesterday (you may notice a theme) that I should probably thank the people who ripped the sprites I used...for the background and the header image I've had up for months... If it's any consolation, I listed all the sites that I got sprites from at the bottom of the page from the very beginning, but allow me to thank the individuals who worked hard so I could make a couple of dumb sprite collages.

First off I have to apologize because I have a few duplicate sprites sheets that are of the same character but ripped by different people, and I can't remember which one I used in a few cases so I'll just list both of the sprite rippers. List is in alphabetical order, by the way.


A.J. Nitro,  ant19831983,  Bacon,  Badbatman3,  Barubary,  Baselz,  Bonzai,  Bruce Juice,  Chaofanatic,  Colton,  CrimsonPenguin,  Croix,  Cyrus Annihilator,  Dan Mt.,  DarkZero,  Dazz,  Drshnaps,  Explosion Makes BOOM!!!,  Fatty McGee,  Frario,  Fret,  Grim,  Gussprint,  Harsh9,  Kazuki,  Lemon,  megarockexe (Ripped seemingly every character sprite from Ace Attorney Investigations. Impressive sir or madam.),  Mr. C,  Nai255,  Name_Changer,  Nick Shuler,  NX-Kun,  OmegaSonic0 (Who says to also credit Bryan Lee O'Malley and Paul Robertson for the Knives Chau sprite.),  Polar Koala,  Ragey,  Random Talking Bush,  Rogultgot,  Ryan914,  Sandrock,  Shoda (Ripped the most important part of my header image, Damon Gant!),  SmithyGCN,  Tomato,  Tommy Lee,  Tonberry2k,  Ultimecia,  Unknown (Yep, that's a username.),  Vyck St. Judas,  Yawackhary, and ^__^ (Evidently, that is also a username.)

Special thanks to Locke_gb7of nes-snes-sprites.com (used a lot of his sprites), infinitymugenteam.com for their awesome fighting game sprite packs, and guiltygear.ru for their Guilty Gear sprite rips. Other sites that I downloaded sprite rips from include The Spriters Resource, Sprite Database, Game Sprite Archive, The Shyguy Kingdom, and Scrollboss. Additionally, I used a couple of fonts from dafont.com; one by Zen Kaipu and the other by Solid Snake's Game Shrine. I'm really sorry if I forgot anyone else.

Again, I must apologize for not giving credit for the sprites that I used before and I also want to reiterate what is written on the bottom of my blog page:

This blog would not be possible without the constant contributions of the gaming community. I could never fully express my gratitude and respect for everything you guys do. You guys rock!

Sort Out the Series: Final Fantasy

Welcome to a new feature! In Sort Out the Series, I'll take a look at the games in one of my favorite series, and rank them in order from least to most favorite.

If you've read a good number of my previous articles, it's probably fairly apparent that I love Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy IV was one of the first RPGs that I ever played and it left quite an impression. Oddly enough though, my top 2 RPGs aren't Final Fantasy games, but I'll talk about that another day. First off, I'm only talking about the main series of FF games and I'm not including XI or XIV since they're online games and I haven't played them anyway. No spin offs of main series games either, like Crisis Core or Final Fantasy X-2. Just Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy XIII.

Honorable Mentions 2011

I played a lot of damn games in 2011 and still there are more that I wish I could play and would if I had more money. Hell, I sold probably half of my PS2, PS3, and 360 games just to buy games that came out last year. Probably the only games scheduled to come out this year that I would do that for are BioShock Infinite, Resident Evil 6, and Assassin's Creed 3 (at least off the top of my head.)

Anyhow, here's a few games that I either didn't play until after my top 15 article or just didn't make the cut, then a long ass list of games that I still want to play. The list is in chronological order with the platform I played each game on in parenthesis.

My Top 5 Games of 2001: #3 Final Fantasy X (PS2)

Developed: Squaresoft
Published: Square Electronic Arts
Genre: JRPG
Platform: PS2


If anyone has been paying attention to this blog, and I know that nobody is but regardless, you've probably been wondering why I haven't been posting as much lately. First: I've been playing a lot of games that I bought over the holiday season, and second: this God damn article. As I said at the end of my top 15 games of 2011 article, I had just about finished this article when I made a mistake and hit the undo button.

The entire article decided to disappear and nothing I did would bring it back. It didn't help that blogger auto saves constantly, which is normally a great feature, but not if it's gonna erase an entire article. This was going to be a full plot summary but I just don't have the motivation for that, especially since I don't like the plot in this game nearly as much as ones that I fully summarized in the past.

Anyway, Final Fantasy X was one of three games (the other 2 being the next 2 games in this top 5) that had me at a level of hype for the PS2 that has yet to be equaled for another platform. I guess the fact that I was like 12 at the time helped but regardless, I really wanted to play this game. Final Fantasy X is the story of a sports star who gets sent to the future and is caught up in the battle against a huge, world destroying beast. It was the first game in the FF series to feature voice acting and has maybe my favorite battle system in any RPG, though its leveling system may be a bit complex.

My new passion: Extended Editions

There's a type of video on YouTube known as an extended edition, which is pretty much what it sounds like. You take a song and extend it to 10 or so minutes (the longest I've seen is a 10 hour long version of Nyan Cat. Wow.) I've made 2 so far: The Fury from Metal Gear Solid 3, which is my favorite song in the entire Metal Gear series, and the boss theme from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, which is the most badass boss music ever. I'll surely do more, though I'll put an immediate stop to it if any of the copyright holders want me to. I'd rather keep my Google account than fight to keep up copyrighted materials that I don't own. And let me make that abundantly clear: I don't own the copyrights to either of these songs. Konami and Square Enix: if you ever read this, just ask and I'll take them down immediately. Anyway, here they are:
By the way, you can pretty much consider this a Game Music Appreciation of the Final Fantasy Mystic Quest boss theme. I'm probably never gonna write about that game again.

Buy Dead Space, Damn You!

Dead Space 1 and 2 are $10 on steam this weekend. Buy them now! Call me a corporate shill or whatever but the Dead Space series is one of my favorite new franchises of the past decade. We need more of these games! If you enjoy action or horror games, then you need to play them.

Game Music Showcase: First Level Music

In Top 5 Game Songs, I list my 5 favorite game songs in a particular category, like Top 5 Battle Themes, or Top 5 Title Screen Songs. I love video game music and find that it doesn't get the respect it deserves, so this is my way of spreading awareness of how great it is. (NOTE 3-7-12: feature change lol)


In Game Music Showcase, I take a look at a few songs from a particular category, like battle themes or title screen songs. The songs are listed in no particular order, except for the last one which is my personal favorite of the bunch.  I love video game music more than any other genre and with this feature, along with game music appreciation, I hope to help you understand why. 

So why bother with having two music features? Game Music Appreciation is more in depth while Game Music Showcase is more of a microcosm of one category of video game songs.

A great first impression is always important and if a game wants to leave a good first impression with me it's gotta have a great opening level. And what's a great opening level without great background music? I give you my top 5 favorite opening level songs.

My top 15 games of 2011. AKA: Holy hell, 2011 was amazing!

Title says it all. In my opinion, 2011 was one of the best gaming years in memory. There were so many amazing games that a top 5 isn't gonna cut it. I'm gonna have to raise the number to 15 to satisfy my need to prattle on endlessly. The top 5 will get proper articles eventually but for now, here's my top 15 games of 2011! By the way, the platform in brackets after each title is the platform I played it on.