JTV Gaming Archive

Competitive gaming taken to the next level.

Yes, I made (and failed to promote, apparently) the JTVGA a while back, but this is a reminder that I still accept scores. In fact, while searching through Richey's old highlights I found a speed run that he had saved for Super Mario Bros, so I added it to the archive. You don't even have to make a new run; if you have an old video of a run stored, link me to it, I'll give it a watch. Remember that runs can be done in a multitude of games, from Super Mario to Left 4 Dead to Donkey Kong to Portal, so there's something for everyone. DON'T BE SHY!

Also, in partnership with JTVGA now is TCG, who have created a section in their forum dedicated to speed and score runs. Any times or scores posted there will be updated into the JTVGA.

Double Elimination Brawl Tourney

Hey everyone, welcome to the sign-ups for my 2nd ever Brawl Tourney. Since the first one was so successful, I've decided to go again, but this time with more opportunities to sign up, and a different set-up all together. All information nessisary will be provided on the photograph of the bracket below. It is much more complex and detailed, and has many more slots (doubling to 32 from 16). Because of this, the tourney will be much longer, but your chances of performing better will increase. So don't be afraid to sign up! You don't have to be good, just come out and have fun. The date of this tourney will be MARCH 15th! As for the time, I will decide that as the date arrives.

Here's your bracket!

Grape's 1st Ever Brawl Tourney

Welcome to the official post of the first ever Grape's Gaming Channel Brawl Tourney! Your brawl skills feel a bit rusty? Want to test your abilities? Just like brawl? Then sign up by replying either here, at my network post, or at the forum post on the GameOn forums. Here's some general information:

Tourney Date: March 1, 2009 at 2:00 PM EST

• 1 vs 1 tourney style single elimination
• 3 stock, first to deplete the other's stock first wins and moves on
• Items OFF
• Battlefield, Final Destination, Delfino Plaza, Yoshi's Island, Lylat Cruise, and Smashville stages ONLY.
• There are no banned characters
• During the tourney, if you happen to fail at following these rules, you will be warned first off, then disqualified on second offense.
• No prizes, I have nothing to give... I could make you like a custom banner for your channel or something, I have some skill with graphic designing.

What a coincidence, the day before this tourney, February 28, The Supah gamerZ network is hosting a tourney of their own. So while you're at it, sign up there as well. Remember, you will not be signed up if you don't reply to one of those three areas!

Thank you everyone for participating! We had a little bit of a speed bump to start this off, but everything went very well overall in the end. Congratulations to KidKoopa, OniLink and ALG_RockStar, who got 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively, and to everyone who participated. It was alot of fun to host and I look forward to similar events in the future. My next tourney will be double elimination with a losing bracket, so even if you arent the best brawler you still have a chance!


RESULTS!

Grape Day

Many of you may or may not remember the original Grape Day, which was some random day in the middle of summer. On that memorable day, 900 fateful viewers dropped into Grape's Gaming Channel to watch Grape speed run Super Mario Bros.

Well, nearly a year later, an even bigger accomplishment has been reached: Grape remained on JTV's front page for 6 hours straight, then again an hour later for another 2 hours. Not only is this the longest I've seen ANYBODY on the front page, but in that time I accumulated 1831 viewers max. That number is no lie. I doubled my previous achievement. And all I was doing was playing Grand Theft Auto races and deathmatch!

Mark January 25th on your calendar, and hopefully next year we'll have just as many viewers show up.

Grape's Reviews: Guitar Hero: World Tour

Guitar Hero: World Tour (Xbox 360)

Release Date: October 26, 2008

Developer: Neversoft

Publisher: Activision

Players: 4

Guitar Hero: World Tour had many mixed opinions upon release. Some argued that it had copied Rock Band in every aspect, which basically meant that Guitar Hero admitted defeat and had to copy to survive. Others defend that Guitar Hero had to do this at some point, or they would have fallen behind. They might also state that it has a song creation feature, and completely unique instruments. Was this game up to standard, or just a lame copy?

Guitar Hero: World Tour noticed that Rock Band was dominating the market. If they remained a guitar-only game, they were sure to lose the rhythm game war. So, ‘guitar hero’ became ‘band hero’, which now has the guitar, the drums and the mic. I will agree that this was a step in the right direction, but it came much too late. Guitar Hero also came up with all-new peripherals; a new guitar with a touch-sensitive slide (used for tricky solos), and a drum set with two upper cymbals and three drums, as well as a bass pedal. Even though Guitar Hero allowed Rock Band peripherals to be used in the game, Guitar Hero’s instruments were too different from the Rock Band ones, so in order to get the full experience of Guitar Hero: World Tour, you will need to dish out ANOTHER 200 dollars for a new set of instruments, which seems very unnecessary. Of course, if don’t have Rock Band yet, it would be your first set of instruments, but Guitar Hero’s instruments cannot be used in Rock Band at all.

One major thing that needs to be reflected on is the new music studio, which allows you to make your own music via an in-game creator and play the songs. The creator deals with a very complex and intricate system that you may have to explore and experiment for days, if not weeks, to figure out. With an idea that had so much potential, Guitar Hero made it so difficult to do anything with it that the entire experience was destroyed. Luckily, you can download songs other users have made via Xbox Live, so if others were brave enough to venture into the impossible, you can enjoy their toils.

I was excited to see the soundtrack for this game. When I did, my excitement quickly turned to utter disappointment. Similar to Rock Band 2, there are 86 in game tracks available. About 20 of these are in Rock Band already. Not to mention that the songs were incredibly poorly picked. Many songs are lacking an instrument, for example Schism hardly has any vocals, and a lot of songs on the track have downright boring drum tracks. The rest, which is about 2 songs (“Beat It” and “Hotel California”), were actually pretty decent. Not to mention METALLICA! (E3 reference), their entire new album was released along with the game, which isn’t that exciting considering Metallica’s new content sucks anyway.

The gameplay in Guitar Hero: World Tour is much like the gameplay of the previous Guitar Hero games, as well as the gameplay of Rock Band. You press the fret buttons and strum, you hit the drums with wooden sticks, or you sing. As fun as this is, the songs provided kill this experience. I suppose the guitar was th only instrument that got the full deal, a multitude of songs had either little to no vocals or intensely boring drums. And while the guitar did get its fill, Activision pulled another cheap shot, and made many guitar solos impossible. Luckily we have the new guitar that you had to pay $90 for!

There is one major improvement that this game made over its predecessors; its graphics. The graphics of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock made NES graphics look like gold. They were choppy, blocky and an overall mess. The graphics of this game have been cleaned up and been given a much smoother look. There are also many different customizable options in Create a Rocker, which was expanded upon even farther than Rock Band’s was. The graphics still didn’t compare to the graphics of Rock Band overall, however... there was still that blocky look that the previous games had.

In conclusion, I give Guitar Hero props for trying. It’s hard to be a wanna-be, because then you get negative reviews and loads of criticism, kind of like the review I’ve written just now. If you had intentions of purchasing this game, I suggest you look into Rock Band instead.

Presentation: 7/10, Changed Guitar Hero into Band Hero, copied Rock Band in every way possible.

Graphics: 8/10, Much smoother than the games before it. Create a Rocker was very diverse and detailed, but still had that blocky feel.

Sound: 6/10, While many of the songs are classics, they don’t belong in a game. Many songs exclude at least one instrument, making the playing experience very dull.

Gameplay: 6.5/10, We’ve seen this already in Rock Band. The only difference is the instruments. If you don’t have Guitar Hero’s peripherals, this game becomes a nuisance to play. They even completely remove a drum note to be compatible with the Rock Band instruments… that tells you they saw it coming!

Lasting Appeal: 6/10, The career mode is very boring and not expanded upon enough. If you can figure out how to use the song editor, this could last you a potentially long time. If not, you’ll be done with this game in a matter of hours.

OVERALL SCORE: 6.5/10

Grape's Reviews: Star Fox 64

Star Fox 64

Release Date: July 1, 1997

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Players: 4

DO A BARREL ROLL! USE BOMBS WISELY! TRY A SOMMERSAULT! USE THE BOOST TO GET THROUGH! If these phrases make no sense to you, go to the nearest second hand shop and buy Star Fox 64. Right now. Star Fox 64 is the second Star Fox title in the series, replacing a previously announced (but cancelled) SNES game called Star Fox 2. as noted on the boxart above, Star Fox 64 was not only the first N64 title to be compatible with the Rumble Pak, but the first video game ever to have rumble capabilities.

Star Fox 64 follows a story a lot like the title before it; Andross was exiled to Venom because of his past evil deeds. Things begin to get troublesome at Venom, so James McCloud (hero of the past game), Peppy Hare, and Pigma Dengar go to investigate. When they arrive, Pigma betrays the team, and allows Andross to capture James, however Peppy escapes. Several years later, Andross begins to act up again. This time James’ son, Fox McCloud (that’s you), recruits a team of Peppy Hare, Falco Lombardi and Slippy Toad to invade Venom and bring down Andross. So while it pulled a Mario in the sense of story originality, it was modified enough to allow avoidance to the similarities.

The soundtrack of Star Fox 64 is one of the most notable and favourable in the Star Fox series. The sounds were smooth, and they fit the atmosphere of the level. Koji Kondo was director of music once again for Nintendo, which can very well explain the quality. Some memorable tracks, such as the Star Fox Theme and Wolf’s Theme have been used a fair number of times in future Star Fox titles.

The gameplay here closely resembles that of the previous game. There are a few extras added in, however. The first change is the path you take in the Lylat system on your way to Venom. Where before you were given full freedom, this game takes you on a different path depending on how you complete the previous level. For example, in Corneria, if you manage to keep Falco alive, and then fly under all the rock arches, Falco will lead you to a secret boss fight. I always try and find different ways of completing this game and beating Andross as fast as possible (speed run!). The controls are simple; A to shoot, control stick to move, and either Z or R to DO A BARREL ROLL!

Graphics were a major factor of this game. In the era of N64, polygonal shapes that resemble objects were taking over video games. This was one of the most well done games at the time, graphically. The landscapes had much better detail, the ships had much more detail... Even the communications boxes at the bottom were much better looking. There were also many effects such as lasers and explosions which looked decent. Of course there was room for improvement, for example lighting, and many supposedly 3-D objects were simply 2-D which rotated to face the screen.

Star Fox 64 blew the Star Fox series out of the water. With a creative-yet-familiar style and loads of options, this game will keep you entertained for days... if not years.

Presentation: 9/10, A SNES title turned N64, the fans wanted a sequel and they got a hell of a lot more. And we can’t forget the introduction of Star Fox’s nemesis... “Can’t let you do that, Star Fox!”

Graphics: 8.5/10, Classic N64 style polygons, with fitting atmospheres and creative level designs as well as well-created character models (for the time).

Sound: 9/10, Many Star Fox favourites. If you have ever played a Star Fox game that was released after this one, you will recognise at least one or two songs. VERY catchy.

Gameplay: 8/10, Very much like the previous title. Also very simplistic. Do lots of barrel rolls, and use your bombs wisely.

Lasting Appeal: 9/10, There are so many ways of beating this game that you will want to find all of the secret passages, and take as many paths as possible. While the game is only 20 minutes or so in one run through, you will spend hours finding all the secrets.

OVERALL SCORE: 8.5/10

Keeping you updated, because I have nothing else to do

Well, just another article to ad to the news section, but here's what has happened recently that I probably should tell you about, as well as some plans for the future.

So, many of you may have noticed I kinda ditched Unco Same and his world tour. I have decided to wait until volleyball is over to continue that, as volleyball tends to get in the way ALOT. So by the end of November expect Unco Same to return.

I have recently purchased Fable 2, which is an excellent game, might I add. I will cast this at some point, I'm trying to progress more into the story first. By the way, my character is pretty bad-ass.

I am in the midst of playing all the games on my top 10, from 10 to 1, and once completed I will review them. A very unprofessional video review will be done for each of them, and I will post a written version right here on my own blog. I just completed number 10 on Tuesday.

Also, FEEL FREE TO COMMENT ON ANY POSTS! i feel as though my website is neglected :(

I have to thank wiiluigi for the following random idea. I decided that a top 10 wasnt enough, so i will be ranking every single game I own. all 120 + of them, from worst to best. the top 10 will obviously stay the same, but now you can see my least favorite games as well.

That's all for the updates, keep watching my channel for more news and stuffs.

-Grape