Method to Madness Has a New Home!
We have moved! Click on the banner above to join us for new content from 2021 to present!
Showing posts with label Twitch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitch. Show all posts
TWITCH COLLECTIONS -- Let's Play: Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Check out my blind playthrough of the third outing in Square Enix's Tomb Raider reboot title from a single Redbox weekend rental.
TWITCH COLLECTIONS -- Let's Play: Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009)
Right in time for Halloween, I did a complete raw playthrough of the 2009 Ghostbusters video game, voiced by all of the original cast members.
Rest in peace, Harold Ramis. Thank you for the memories as Egon along with the rest of the cast and crew.
Watch Ghostbusters: The Video Game (X360) from xionzeros on www.twitch.tv
TWITCH COLLECTIONS -- Let's Play: Horizon Zero Dawn - The Frozen Wilds (DLC)
Check me out playing Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds DLC (PS4) from my Twitch broadcast archive!
TWITCH COLLECTIONS -- Let's Play: Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4)
Check me out playing Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4) from my Twitch broadcast!
Twitch's Not-So Hidden Gems: Volume One
Twitch is a live streaming video platform owned by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon. Introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform, Justin.tv, the site primarily focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of eSports competitions, in addition to creative content, "in real life" streams, and more recently, music broadcasts. Content on the site can either be viewed live or via video on demand.
The popularity of Twitch eclipsed that of its general-interest counterpart. In October 2013, the website had 45 million unique viewers, 38 and by February 2014, it was considered the fourth largest source of peak Internet traffic in the United States. At the same time, Justin.tv's parent company was re-branded as Twitch Interactive to represent the shift in focus – Justin.tv was shut down in August 2014. That month, the service was acquired by Amazon for US $970 million, which later led to the introduction of synergies with the company's subscription service Amazon Prime. Twitch later acquired Curse, an operator of online video gaming communities and introduced means to purchase games through links on streams along with a program allowing streamers to receive commissions on the sales of games that they play.
By 2015, Twitch had more than 1.5 million broadcasters and 100 million viewers per month. As of Q3 2017, Twitch still remains the leading live streaming video service for video games in the US, and has an advantage over YouTube Gaming. As of May 2018, it now has 2.2 million broadcasters monthly and 15 million daily active users.
I've wanted to do an article like this for quite some time actually, covering some of my personal favorite channels and streamers that I take pleasure in watching. Twitch is the thing that most people are familiar with when it comes to broadcasting, so I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of my favorites.
When I say Volume One that's because I'm sure that I'm going to have to update this list in the future, so yeah.
Speedrunners
Calebhart42 - My personal favorite Mega Man streamer/speedrunner. He's usually doing runs of Mega Man X (original on Japanese cart at any percent completion for personal best times) or X2 (100% completion). When he's not streaming those games, he's doing runs of Final Fantasy VII. He's also started doing some runs with Maximillian from what I've heard.
TheMexicanRunner - He's known for completing and streaming complete playthroughs of EVERY NES console NTSC release of 800+ titles. He's been mostly running Cuphead recently, but most of the time he's speedrunning Battletoads or any other retro classic titles from that console era. He's been slowly collecting every NES console release too.
LackAttack24 - He streams mostly speedruns of The Legend of Zelda (NES original) and occasionally Mega Man 2.
GamesDoneQuick - Speedrunners come together from around the globe and host a week full of non-stop speedruns, breaking games old and new - all while donating all profits from this event to noteworthy charity organizations, notably for cancer research or doctors without borders.
Speedgaming1 - Daily competitive speedruns, mostly in Super Metroid or The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with randomizer rules.
Speedgaming2 - A companion channel to the above with extra competitors competing in the same bracket.
Entertainment
ShoutFactory - Occasionally streams random episodes of the original run of GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling), Classic Old School Wrestling (that WWE surprisingly hasn't bought the rights to for the WWE Network). Their archives include the full complete series marathon of Reboot, Ultraman Leo, Denji Sentai Megaranger (Japanese original series where Power Rangers: In Space's archive footage was pulled from), Street Hawk: The Man... The Machine... and even Mystery Science Theater 3000. Their streams are mostly derived from whatever they are about to release on DVD that they currently hold the license rights to.
Twitch Presents - Currently streaming EVERY episode and every season of Doctor Who to date. I don't know how far they are in this daunting task, but bravo. Last year they streamed every season of Power Rangers to date, followed by complete series runs of Yu-Gi-OH! and Digimon.
Twitch Presents 2 - Weekly Marathons of He-Man, She-Ra, and Voltron (GoLion and Vehicle Voltron original English dubs), roughly five episodes of each a piece before repeating the marathon all day/night on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
For anyone looking to relive their childhood Saturday mornings as kids of the 80's like myself, this is a pleasant treat to put on as you're going to be to wake up for your pre-work routine and still watch some of these classic toons on your way out of the door. Sure, a lot of this stuff hasn't aged well - i.e. Like Prince Adam can't do anything, not even open a jar of pickles without having to resort turning into He-Man. Allura has a similar issue but it comes off as she goes through puberty after turning into She-Ra, despite the voice acting credits cite that roughly the same two women voices every other character in that show.
As for Voltron, it's nice to reflect on that original series and see where it came from but some of the voices were fucking horrible. Looking right at you Sven... I love Michael Bell's voice acting work, but that role had to be his fucking worst one, especially to say that he plays a character in Vehicle Voltron who sounds identical to Sven! Okay, okay, rant over...
CONtv - The best way I can describe this channel as pot luck. They seem to have just about anything for all different tastes. Some days have Zatch Bell marathons or an occasional marathon of Yu-Gi-OH! (mainly the original series, 5D's, or GX - the Bonds Beyond Time movie was actually shown this past weekend), Deltora Quest, or even Saint Seiya (original run). On weekends they seem to show whatever they fancy in terms of classic anime or cartoons, as one weekend I was treated to the full King of Fighters: Destiny anime in its entirety of it's first season. FYI that series has been greenlit for another season, so that was a pleasant surprise to see it on this channel. Another rare treat was the Heavenly Sword CGI movie that was released straight-to-DVD a few years ago. Ninja Theory's criminally underrated PlayStation 3 exclusive that I had my fingers crossed of possibly getting a sequel when Hellblade was first announced. With that studio under Microsoft's umbrella we can pretty much rule that out as a possibility. Still, it was awesome to get to see the events of the game retold in this cinematic format. I'm definitely going to pick that up on DVD when I get a chance. I've reviewed the console release of that game ages ago though.
Fighting Game Community (FGC)
Team Spooky - Home of the weekly Next Level Battle Circuit streams over on the East Coast, while covering FGC events around the globe whenever possible. He hosts local and international FGC streams on his channel as well, so that fans of Mortal Kombat XL, Guilty Gear Xrd, Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Dragon Ball FighterZ won't miss out on the action.
LevelUpLive - Home of Wednesday Night Fights and The Runback, along with most FGC events being held on the West Coast of the United States, ran by Alex "Calipower" Valle himself.
CapcomFighters - Home of the Capcom Pro Tour event streams, specifically for Street Fighter V currently.
TEKKEN - Home of the Tekken World Tour events held around the world. Seems like the Tekken scene always has something going on, either stateside or internationally. If there's a Tekken World Tour event going on, then nine times out of ten, this channel is covering it.
UltraChenTV - Hosted by James Chen and UltraDavid, two renown commentators for the FGC, they offer weekly news on what's going on in terms of the current state of the FGC and itsand FGC tutorial streams in various fighting games.
AvoidingThePuddle - Aris, a prolific, yet controversial figure in the Tekken community, provides commentary on the ins and outs of what's going on in the Tekken community, while occasionally dabbling in other games, such as Dark Souls, Resident Evil series, or whatever tickles his fancy that given night. Definitely one of my favorite pros to watch since he mains one of my favorite Tekken characters, Sergei Dragunov.
Maximillian_DOOD - Popular from his YouTube series, Assist Me!, featuring a comedic live-action approach to fighting game tutorials for Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and it's sequel Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Max is a popular streamer and reviewer of fighting games and some other genres as well. He mainly streams longplay sessions throughout the weekdays of various titles, but joins up with his friends for "Yo! Video Games!" (obvious spoof on Yo! MTV Videos from back in the day) where they play multiplayer games while chatting together on the couch.
mvcclockwork - Mostly streaming from built-in PlayStation 4 streaming app, Marvel vs. Capcom series veteran Clockwork (known mostly for his Strider/Dr. Doom teams in the series) mostly streams his online sessions of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite against randoms as he trains for majors or simply against his roommate for fun. If you don't care about the lack of fancy borders/overlays and just want to watch two guys hanging out playing video games, you can't go wrong here.
Professional Wrestling
House of Hardcore (HoH) - They offer a free alternative to WWE programming almost every week on Thursdays after Impact Wrestling, then on Sundays as well with a rerun stream.
LuchaLibreAAA - Offering mostly old and new matches of their lucha libre product. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately if you speak the language...) ENTIRELY in Spanish. The feed is a bit disorganized too as it's like playing the lottery on whether or not in terms what you're going to get since the content is so damn random. On the plus side, AAA has been offering their biggest PPV of the year, TripleMania, free on this platform live and free to watch, so there's something to be thankful for.
Impact Wrestling - 24/7 offerings of Impact Wrestling's events. Mostly reruns of previous episodes of Impact Wrestling from this past month or highlight compilations featuring former stars that went to WWE or blocks devoted to the heights of the Knockouts division. Occasional live interviews and panels weekly too. You can't beat this content for free. You don't even have to pay for the Global Wrestling Network for this.
YouTube Channel's Down!!?? No New Content!!?? What's Going on, ZX? -- Allow Me To Explain
I just wanted to take a moment and air what has transpired with my YouTube channel for this blog, along with recapping my last few weeks...
The whole ordeal has been discussed in length on this blog's Discord channel, so to make a long story short, on June 7, 2018, I received not one but FOUR messages all at once that my account has been disabled. Then my Google+ account (which I don't even fucking use BTW...) looks like this, yet I can't access nor do anything with my old videos.
So, I'm like whatever, I'll just appeal since I haven't done anything wrong. I don't even profit off anything on my channel and the few things that I have been warned about have that "This is just a heads up. Don't worry. You're not in trouble and your account standing is not affected by this." message attached to it. The last one of those emails I received was back at the start of March, so if that was a problem it should have been mentioned back then. I'm racking my brain on what in the world that I could have done wrong and simply filled out a repeal.
I go into my usual routine of web browsing and notice that Shoryuken and Eventhubs were reporting that Level Up | Series had their channel taken down in the same fashion. I think "Cool, so I'm not the only one with this BS going on..."
A few hours later and Level Up gets their account back to normal while I'm looking at a juicy fat rejection notice as the response to my repeal on my account. Well, FML...
So yeah... 500+ videos down the drain of roughly 5 years of work streaming and recording content. I'm just at a loss of words. I still am to be quite honest. I guess I should be fortunate that my laptop has been archiving SOME of my older streams (back when I was still using my Roxio Game Capture) in folder tucked away hidden into my Windows directory, so there's something to shuffle through to see if that content is worth keeping or not.
Every time I think about this situation, it frustrates me on a lot of levels. It was my personal collection of fun times that I've had in games as of late, others that I shared with friends, such as my co-op Borderlands and various fighting game streams that were archived. Stuff that I've broadcasted directly from PlayStation 4, such as the bulk of the Horizon Zero Dawn playthrough (outside of the Frozen Wilds DLC that I just happened to save as a highlight on my channel), Batman Arkham Knight, Shovel Knight, No More Heroes, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and more recently, the bulk of my Monster Hunter World streams (which I've devoted a lot of time into), all down the drain for nothing.
It's hard to get motivated to stream again... I'll be honest about that. What's more frustrating about this situation that I literally just bought an El Gato H60S just for streaming more games along with HDMI converters for both my Wii and PlayStation 2, only to have this mess throw me completely off the race track. It's hard to get back into the drivers' seat and start back again at this from what feels like from scratch at Day One.
Friends have encouraged me to try some alternatives to YouTube, such as Vimeo or Mixlr, but I just can't even find the positive energy to even get the ball rolling again. Hell, I keep thinking about this situation. I'm a general nobody on YouTube, Twitch, and social media (despite 800+ followers/Likes on both the Let's Talk Wrestling Blog Facebook and Twitter accounts that I'm sure is mostly bots/spam accounts anyway...) and this devastated what little momentum and drive I had. I can't imagine what this would do to a full-time podcaster/streamer that have been burning at both ends on this for as long as the Level Up crew have been at this. With that realization, I felt that it's time to just focus and channel my energies into something else for a while.
I was going to cover/talk about E3 but nothing this year honestly stuck out to me as something I have to get immediately at launch. I guess I should count that as a blessing. That means I have a few months of actually having time to catch up on things in my gaming backlog from the past few years. Plus, E3 brings out the worst in terms of gaming culture it seems, especially from the journalists end of it and the ass-hats who argue over the "best" gaming platforms like this is the racial draft from Chappelle's Show or something. Get the fuck over yourselves and realize that the console doesn't matter, just support great games no matter what platform they are on.
I spent the better part of the last two weeks, exporting, editing, proofreading, and re-reading some of my old stories and content on FictionPress. Saved the stories (notably Fighting Power, Rebel Unit VVG, and Bullets, Blades, and Blood) on my Google Drive and set out to divide them up into chapters in one singular document, along with unused/unreleased content that I had saved in inboxes from old/dead Yahoo! email accounts. I even took the time to even FINALLY update and configure my Deviantart account that I've had for the better part of a decade and never did anything with. Yeah, I follow a TON of artists on there, but never post anything of my own. I changed that by archiving some of my old sketchbook scans from my personal Facebook account on there. (Shrugs) It's a start.
After taking notes and re-reading through the entirety of my original run of my Bullets, Blades, and Blood story, I finally got off my ass and typed up the Teaser #2 for the pending reboot/revamp that I have been sitting on for about a year and half and released it yesterday morning. The original teaser was about 3+ years ago, so this was long overdue to say that I have had the bulk of this handwritten already. I'm already working on a "cheat sheet" of sorts where I'm listing all of the characters I plan on including in this story along with a short description/bullet points on their powers and what-not. Y'know, something to keep my mind buzzing and focused on this project that I've been sitting on for long enough.
 |
| First attempt at a render in IRay. Damn laptop froze while rendering when I left it on while I was asleep so only got this partial file. Outside of the odd shading on the face, I thought it wasn't bad for a first attempt. My main focus was seeing how the costume looked in output. I swear I HATE how there's little options for male models in terms of hairstyles but you can find hundreds of ones for females. (Shrug) Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. |
 |
| First "complete" render. Just was combining a few parts around and simply seeing how my laptop could handle rendering with a few basic settings. Not crazy about this one, but it's a learning process y'know? |
As you can see above, I have been trying my hand at Daz3D/Daz Studio. I've started with mostly Genesis 3 Male/Female models, along with Michael 7 and Victoria 7 for what that you will see here. I've had it for the better part for over a year, but recently really trying to break into it, especially after what transpired. I could name a lot of Deviantart artists who create stuff on this program, which ranges from SFW to definitely NSFW content, that I simply adore and I would love to create some content in this if possible.
 |
| Attempt at a black female model, while simultaneously messing around with the body morphing settings. Looks good right? Okay, look at the output image below... |
 |
| IRay did some freaky shit there on the output and I have no idea what I did wrong there. Pretty much a LOT of trial and error with this thing. (Sighs) At least the hair looks nice... Either way, back to the drawing board. |
Here's my most recent attempt below.
 |
| Pre-render screenshot, top got distorted after loading the pose for this scene. Ended up attempting like 6 other tops to the same effect. (Sighs) More likely going to have to go with a different pose in a future update anyway. |
 |
| Output render. I'm pleased with this for the most part, but the more I look at it there's stuff I can touch up. i.e. The hands can be tightened more around the hilts of the katanas, I could adjust her feet a bit in the back from how she's sitting, relayer/rearrange the corset top to layer below the rest of the armor, and so on. I swear, it's driving me nuts that I can't find a simple ninja mask separate from all of these older Daz3D packs that would auto-fit to my models properly. |
I get it. I'm not great at this yet, but I'm trying, dammit. Just doing something to keep the ball rolling. I just need to keep reading on this program and watching YouTube tutorials.
Watch Testing Out El Gato Capture Card from xionzeros on www.twitch.tv
Monday night (June 18), I tested out my El Gato H60S for the first time with Monster Hunter World since one of my friends informed me the Arch Tempered Elder Dragon Kirin event was ending on the 21st, so I wanted to try my hand at it. I have to iron out the broadcast settings (of course...) but I thought it wasn't a bad first attempt. I dunno, maybe I can ease back into the swing of things. It's just that I doubt I'm going to bother exporting everything to another site, only to go through this heartbreak, or rather headache again. I'll just simply save every other broadcast down as a highlight for my few viewers on Twitch can have something to check out when I'm not streaming.
As for the huge gap in new articles/content, this ordeal should explain where my head has been at. I have a few articles on the past weekend's worth of WWE programming, including NXT TakeOver: Chicago II and WWE Money in the Bank 2018 pending in my drafts, so look for those in the next few days. I just have to keep committing myself to work on something else and quit focusing on the negativity.
God, I need a weekend away from everything and just to myself to hit the reset button... So yeah, gimme a bit to get back into the swing of things. I'm just completely not in the zone currently.
My Top 5 Favorite Streams of 2017
Over the past year, I've gotten into the habit of trying to stream something at least once at week or have an ongoing series of a game that I'm currently plowing through at my leisure. For the first article of 2018, I wanted to share my top 5 favorite games to stream over the past year on my personal Twitch TV channel. For any of my other archived gaming streams, go visit my YouTube channel here.
#5 - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
Why? I haven't played a Zelda title (at least none of the "newer" ones) for a VERY long time... at least not since Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64, then dabbling with the portable entries and A Link to the Past via emulation (still need to finish that last dungeon at some point). I loved Midna as a sidekick - much more entertaining than Navi was and I appreciated this much "darker" Zelda narrative. I was a little disappointed at the ending, but I enjoyed the game from start to finish. I did roughly everything outside of the Great Fairy Challenge in those 40-50 floors of enemies and get some of the "rare" items (hunting down all of the Poe Souls for one...), so I guess there's that to do if I ever wanted to revisit this game.
#4 - Borderlands (Xbox 360 - Xbox Live Co-Op) - Defeating Crawmerax
Right after the New Year rolled in at the start of 2017, I pulled off this feat.
It's just a clip but damn we were fucking proud of this moment. I finished him off while bleeding out and we got the kill there.
I haven't been able to get much Borderlands gameplay recorded as I like playing that mostly with my best friend, but I don't like to bug him while he's enjoying the married life when he's not busy preoccupied with his scholarly studies. (Shrugs) I dunno, maybe we can get that run of True Vault Hunter Mode run of Borderlands 2 finished at some point. If not, I plan on getting back to my solo Siren run eventually too.
#3 - Asura's Wrath (Xbox 360)
I mainly streamed this game to expose my readers and viewers to this collaboration between Capcom and CyberConnect2 (who normally handles Bandai Namco's anime-based titles, such as the Naruto games as the influences are bloody obvious here...) that created a game that literally is like watching and playing an anime series play out from start to finish. There's a few sections that I hate in this game with a passion from the redundancy, but it's narrative and presentation is one worth experiencing.
It's one thing that frustrates me with Capcom currently. They put so much stock into Street Fighter and their fighting game properties that they fail to realize that they have single player properties that are pretty much easy money on the table if they would give those series just enough love and care that they do to their beloved Street Fighter. This game, along with Remember Me, I felt were criminally slept on and skipped over by gamers at the time of their release. They aren't perfect games, but they bring ideas to the table that sequels could polish and truly be great.
#2 - No More Heroes (Wii)
I'm shocked at myself that there's not one but TWO Wii games on this list. What can I say? No More Heroes is the game that introduced me to the awesomeness that is Suda51's brilliant (yet crazy and bizarre mind for gaming narratives). I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting this game and exposing people to it that never seen this game before. Even though I didn't much care for the sequel, I think I might stream that at some point too down the road. It's either that or a New Game+ run of this on Hard difficulty.
I will note that Suda51 gear his games towards mostly a more "mature" audience, so I'll put that precaution out there before anyone tries to dwell too deep into his games. He doesn't pull any punches in that regard and was a rather pleasant shock to say that this was a Nintendo Wii exclusive for a VERY long time until the HD remaster No More Heroes: Paradise popped up on the PlayStation 3 (and import Xbox 360).
#1 - Horizon Zero Dawn (PlayStation 4)
Well duh... You KNEW this was going to be the number one pick. With 100+ hours of gameplay in-game, I hate to calculate up how much real life time that I've sinked into that game over the past year. That being said, I don't regret a moment of it. That was my personal Game of the Year pick since launch and it just seems to get better the more time I sink into it, especially with the recent Frozen Wilds downloadable content add-on. The only things I haven't done in this game was find all of the collectibles, the hunting club activities, and I'm possibly missing a few of the fetch sidequests that I somehow overlooked on the map. Most of that is all grind work and I doubt I would stream it unless I get really bored one day.
After the playing the DLC, I am interested in doing an Ultra-Hard New Game+ run at some point though. That's definitely in the pipeline.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)