It's been a long and winding road but this week I finally have Video Game Collector Issue #11 in my hands.  What originally started last year before a number of snafus led to the magazine not being printed, I was contacted when my summer began to give the magazine another go.  After reworking nearly all of the issue, we finally have a finsihed product that had seen numerous changes from its initial conception.  Even though there has been a lengthy amount of time inbetween this issue and its previous release, I still have my loyalties set with the publication and I would hate to see it cease publication.  Unfortunately, with a huge number of changes to the contents, there was a good chunk of content I worked on that got cut from the issue, but the end results still impress me and I got to work along with a group of very dedicated and close companions.

The new issue has shipped and should be reaching the mailboxes of subscribers soon - if it hasn't arrived to them already.  Issue #11 marks my editorial debut in a print publication (that wasn't created by myself) and it shifts its focus from the 1970s of the Atari VCS to the more modern timeframe of the late '90s to early '00.  The shift may be a bit radical and it might seem odd that a magazine dedicated to collecting would look at such a recent spread of years, but when you consider we are fast approaching Sept. 9, 2009, it should really make a lot of sense.  I put my all into this issue and crafted a majority of the content inside as it really resonates with my interests in gaming.  Our system feature recognizes 10 years of the Dreamcast on U.S. shores with a few insights on prototype and independent games for the system and our theme features focus on one-on-one 2-D fighting games and rhythm-based games.  As such, the issue is packed full of interviews with those involved with the games and we have a couple of really great retrospectives written by Kristina Potts.  With the rhythm gaming features, I was able to enlist the help of my great friend Eddie from Bemanistyle.com to provide insight on the music game articles and MixMasterLar even got in on the action with a review.  It was a fun, yet bumpy experience, but the end result has made everything worth the effort.

In issue #11, you'll find the following features:

*A new Cast in Plastic feature detailing fighting game characters in model form
*A full two-page spread on the development and rebalancing of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix featuring an interview with the game's producer Rey Jimenez, as well as an interview with David Lloyd and Larry Oji of OCRemix on remixing the game's soundtrack
*A full four-page spread on DanceDanceRevolution featuring a forward by Eddie of Bemanistyle.com - the #1 music game news site based in the U.S. -, a rundown of the valuable Playstation One U.S. releases of the series, a full series U.S. release list, info on collecting the series' U.S. soundtrack releases, a look at reocurring themes in the series, importing DDR titles, the future of the series and more
*A two-page interview with Cryptic Allusions based on its independent Dreamcast music game release Feet of Fury
*A new Made in Japan feature revisiting rhythm-based games that missed the U.S.
*A full retrospect of every The King of Fighters release prior to the recent release of XII
*Kristina Potts breaks down a number of 2-D Neo Geo fighters outside of SNK's most popular franchises
*An interview with Tomm Hullet of Konami based on the Silent Hill franchise, which is also recognizing its 10th year in 2009
*A six-page photo checklist of every U.S. Dreamcast game officially released at retail
*Michael Thomasson details the Dreamcast's Propellar Arena prototype
*14 new reviews of fighting, rhythm and Dreamcast games detailing their value and whether or not they are worth playing
*And, of course, our full video game price guide, which is now approaching 14,000 prices

Hit up the Video Game Collector official Web page if you want to inquire about ordering a copy of issue #11 and while you're there, if you like what you see, back issues are also available for order.

With two five-day periods past us, the A to Z experiment has yielded two new reviews to the site:

A to Z Experiment 1 - 2K Sports All-Pro Football 2K8

A to Z Experiment 2 - Afro Samurai

As I had mentioned earlier, on 360Voice, I am doing comparable pieces on each game, but, instead, focusing on the achievements in each game.  I will start pulling those over here in due time, perhaps once I do a couple more of these features, but, until then, head over and check these pieces out:

2K Sports All-Pro Football 2K8 5-day achievements

Afro Samurai 5-day achievements

The next game on the list has been played and investigated, so look forward to a new review and achievement piece starting as soon as tomorrow!

"Another week, another recap... and you love me for it: If your Xbox is depressed, try playing seven days in a row like nestlekwik did last week. It has a way of making you a bit giddy... We added 300 points of gamerscore. Points are good! Those 34 achievements were worth it I guess!

Out of all the possible new games we could have tried this last week, nestlekwik and I only tried one of them: Golden Axe. Pretty fun I guess... Also, I think nestlekwik's favorite game last week was STREET FIGHTER IV. He played it on 7 of the days.

So there you have it... Check back next week for another report from yours truly."

Again, if you'd like your Xbox 360 to write its own blog, head over to 360Voice.com and while you're there, join our 360Voice group.

I've been having quite a laid back couple of weeks, but, I would have to say it's about due.  Only some of it was relaxation, though, as work is picking up a bit and my college is giving me a bunch of crap about a course substitution.  Mix that in with other things I have going on and doing last-minute preparations for a trip this upcoming weekend, and my brain has been a little scattered.  The only new titles I've been able to hit recently was Beautiful Katamari, even though my 360 Voice recap says otherwise.  I almost got to enjoy a little BlazBlue, but the disc I borrowed was scratched up and wouldn't advance past the initial loading screen.  Speaking of Golden Axe, though, is there someone willing to jump online with me so I can finally get the last achievement in it?

That being said, my month as fill-in for Diehard GameFAN's PR has come to an end and it's reminded me of how fun, yet frustrating the work can be.  Seemingly, most people believe that upon starting up a video games function, companies just throw review copies at your doorstep, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  The process isn't something I will go into here (maybe if I ever write that book I want to), but you quickly learn that the field of video games PR is a fickle beast.  However, with everyone and their mother popping up Geocities sites just to eat up the pieces of the pie, it's no wonder these companies are as shielded as ever from the people that have more integrity in their intentions.  Never in my dreams did I ever imagine I would receive review copies of games - I got into the writing because it combined two of the things I treasure most: Writing and video games.  My real reward was just knowing that someone would read my work, all of the perks I've received since then have been mere icing on a very delicious cake.  Of course, the PR aspect runs further than swapping games for reviews.  As the head of the department, you're also the person people depend on to get review copies for the site as a whole, nab exclusive interviews and keep tabs on release dates and promotional media for upcoming games on top of the communications you establish in order to work on featuring contests and forwarding coverage of games to publishers and PR.  Interestingly enough, I was able to bump into a few contacts I had spoken to in some time and even though the work took an hour or two of my time daily, it was extremely enjoyable and going back to it almost makes me want to take more PR classes at college.

All things considered, though, I've still been plugging away at work online.  In the near future, I'll be pushing over some of the reviews and features I've been up to recently and the next week or two could be really interesting for me if I have my plans pan out as planned.  That just really never seems to happen, though.  I'll stay optimistic and look forward to these really great possibilities.  We'll see what happens, but for the weekend, I'm going to entrust the site over to Lar from Friday through Sunday, maybe one or two days before and after.  If he's up to it, he'll be the one that has to stop by and feed the site daily and let it outside to potty.

This is something I toiled around with on 360Voice.com as I've been wanting to do more achievement-based articles for a while now.  I typically don't buy very many games anymore, so i find myself renting games for 4-5 days at a time. Many of you probably already know about several of the easy achievements in these games, but I thought I would share a recent handful that would boost your score if you haven't check them out yet.

Fight Night Round 4 - 790 out of 1000
I had this one for just a few days and unlocked every single player achievement with ease. You could easily boost a few of the online achievements with friends, but the online title achievements might take a bit of dedication.

Transformers 2 - 545 out of 1000
I would have easily pulled more achievements out of this given more time. It was fairly simple to pull the 545 just by beating the game with both scenarios. If I would have had more time to build up energon and purchase all of the upgrades through endless grinding, I would have had more points pulled from this one.

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard - 850 out of 1000
Laughably easy achievements overall. I thought about tackling the hardest difficulty, but, also, the specific weapon kills would have required a few more playthroughs I just didn't have time for. This title is a very realistic 1,000 points.

X-Blades - 640 out of 1000
I didn't care for this game very much, but the achievements came pretty easily in it. I could only stomach one playthrough on this at the moment, but that single session pulled in 640 points. While there are a few harder achievements in the game, it's very realistic to pull a large number of points from this one.

The BIGS 2 - 475 out of 1000
I just did not have time to tackle the legend mode in this game, but through exhibition and practicing home run pinball, I nabbed almost 500 points out of this one in a mere two sessions. Playing through the game's season and legend mode should unlock another nice chunk of points in this game, but it will require a bit of time.

Secret Service - 685 out of 1000
Another pretty easy shooter in the vein of Eat Lead. This game isn't as bad as most might want you to think, but it's not exactly Call of Duty 4 either. In about five hours, I was able to blow through the game on the agent difficulty without night vision goggles to grab nearly 700 points in one playthrough. I'm still have this title and will probably nab a few more achievements in it before it goes back - FPS vets will have another realistic 1,000 points with this one.

Keep checking back as I get more in depth with achievements and perhaps cover a few games that will boost your Gamerscore.

By MixMasterLar

There are some characters in the fighting genre that scream, "I'm a shiny golden god come get me!," and there are some that are so fun to play as that players will flock to them. I have played a lot of fighting games in my life and it seems that a few of them are seriously underrated in not only their own game, but in fan-based dream match discussions. It ticks me off to no end that some people think the only fighters in Street Fighter II worth playing are Ryu and Chun-Li ... or in Gulty Gear XX the only people that are worthy are Sol and Chipp. With that burning anger, I decided to share a few characters I feel are the most underrated Fighting Game Characters.

Balrog (Street Fighter 2, Capcom vs SNK2)
Balrog, the boxer that fights like he has a huge bank riding on the match, this guy is absolutely awesome in SFII to play as and in Capcom vs SNK 2. He owns every other Capcom fighter. Why?  He's American for one and he has some insane power coming from those punches. Don't believe me?  Set your game to very hard or higher and play a round with him or better yet go to a tournment and tell a Balrog player he sucks - you're sure to lose teeth out both your and Ryu's mouth. My favorite move is charge back then press down-forward + kick.  Follow that up with a fierce punch and you're good.

You can't tell me this guy can't lay a hurt'n' on ya.  Not only that, but in the 1995 anime, he is a scientist for Bison ... how's that for a boss?

Jo Karazma(Bushido Blade 2)
Ok, I have no idea why most everyone I've talked to about BB2 thinks that the flaboyent tomboy Jo is a complete waste of a character slot. You think that a starting character would at least be played a little more. Jo is insanely fast, yet balanced out pretty well - not too powerful, but not the weaksauce by any means (that title goes to the frog-throwing Chihiro). Due to her being able to move a bit faster than the guys (not counting her counterpart Tatsumi, who really would be on this list if it was a top 6). She can pick almost any light weapon and do fine. The Yuri is my personal favorite - tap forward, forward, X in regular stance and she does some insane spins (yeah, everyone can do them I know, but Jo is so dang fast and cute).

Plus she throws a Sai that seems to be made from some sort of fisherman's hook or something ... how cool is that?

Ling Xaioyu (Tekken)
Hands up - who here regularly plays Xiao in Tekken and can beat anyone?

...

Yeah, I though so. The sad news is Ling has to be one of the best fighters in the game. Butterfly stance, were she crouches over to where practically no one can hit her, is the best thing for a Tekken fighter to have since throws. She can go low, high, to the side or simply get out of dodge by jumping back and kicking. She's pretty powerful in Tekken 3 dispite her great speed, and in Tekken 5, her jumping kicks are the best. Raven seriously needs to give up and stay on the ground: Ling has jumping kicks down.

Also, you can easily tell that Xiaoyu knows when to move.

No, really.  (S)He that runs away, lives to fight another day. In Tekken, most fighters have a hard time getting out of the way but Xaio can easily avoid anything that a enemy can throw (or shoot out his 3rd eye) at her regardless of where she is (can Paul or Jin jump away when standing backwards? I think not).  A dream match I would love to see is Ling vs Virtua Fighter's Lion. That would be cool.

Sinclair (Art of Fighting 3)
I wonder why on earth this character hasn't been in the King of Fighters yet. Sinclair is a assassin that would make the rest of the cast look like a joke. She's a pain to beat with that one move where she makes all the daggers apper in air and stabs the crap out of you. Besides that, she's just cool: assassins are cool, female fighters with insane power are cool and playing with a sabre in a game were you have to fight with your hands is cool. I hope that SNK brings her back in something ...

Cody Travers (Final Fight, Street Fighter Alpha 3)
Ok, this one might be a shocker to you but it's true: Cody is underrated dispite being in Street Fighter Alpha 3, one of the most popular 2D games at this time. I have no earthly idea why you don't see people rave about kicking much butts with ol' Cody; gameplay-wise he's pretty solid, being the only character to auto-dodge Hadokens with X-ism and having some great single strikes. Cody also has that city-personality thing going on that's lacking from games these days ... I'm tired of fighting with demons and freaks: Cody keeps it real at least.

So why dont we see him anymore? Well, for starters, he hasn't starred in a real game since SFA3 was released back near 1996. He wasn't the most played. it seems, due to the entire entire cast of SFII getting included and we also got the chance to play as Guy (Guy is awesome; do not dis Master Guy in anyway). Cody was also not considered a main character and if Capcom has proved one thing, it's that if the storyline doesnt feature you as Mister Uno himself, then you don't get to come back.

But is he that bad? I can rack up some carnage with Cody myself and I've seen a few Cody players wreck some havoc, so why hasnt the secret been exposed? Cody is the man (I mean in SFA3 he fights with handcuffs for Pete's sake).

Well, there you have it: My personal top 5 Underrated fighters. I would have liked to included Tatsumi, Little Mac, Kim Kaphwan and Lion, but the ones listed, In My Humble Opinion, are getting way too much dirt kicked in their face these days (at least Kim is still featured and Little Mac is fondly remembered).  I hope you enjoyed the list and, if you do disagree with any of it, feel free to take it up with me by leaving a comment.