Hyrule Beyblade Go Go Fight Yes

This is a good game.  A good, serious, quality, fun game.  No need to make jokes here.

Link rides a... beyblade!?! In Hyrule Warriors

Uhhhhhmmmm, he is definitely riding a beyblade.

This game takes itself very seriously, with plenty of realistic weapons.

Link fights with an 8-bit sword in Hyrule Warriors

What is that? A Minecraft sword?

The highly detailed costumes are constantly impressive.

Link wears his super fashionable postman outfit in Hyrule Warriors

Wait. Why is this happening? What is this?

And uh, there’s co-op, so we can yell at each other for your amusement.

[Editors Note: And you can donate now for Hyrule Warriors to see any of this (all of this?) during our upcoming 48-hour-straight marathon on June 12th!]

Sponsor Spotlight: Twibbon

Did you know that you can easily add UPickVG flair to your Facebook and Twitter accounts with just a few clicks? You can! And that’s thanks to our sponsor, Twibbon:

Twibbon - add UPickVG flair to your profile pictures

Your mileage may vary as to whether it looks like you’re kissing our logo, like this woman does.

Twibbon has graciously sponsored UPickVG with a lifetime “Pro” account, letting you easily change your profile pictures or even your Facebook cover photo to show your support of the U-Pick Video Game Marathon for charity!

So head on over to our Twibbon page to add some UPickVG flair to your Twitter pic, your Facebook profile pic, or to add this awesome cover photo to your Facebook page:

UPickVG IV Facebook Cover

This could be YOUR Facebook cover image!

Twibbon - a UPickVG Sponsor

Jackie Chan Seems Like A Pretty Good Grandson

I love Jackie Chan.  Remember that time when he was in The Legend of Drunken Master?

Slimy Jackie Chan in Drunken Master

Srs slimy muscle Chan is my hero

Or when he got to hang out with Chris Tucker?

Jackie Chan with Chris Tucker in Rush Hour

This is probably not as funny as I remember it being…

Well, he was also in this PS1 game.

Jackie Chan Stuntmaster for PS One

I guess he’s jump kicking while holding a pool cue, but I always saw this as spiderman swinging towards me. Jackie Chan: Spidermanmaster

Screenshot from Jackie Chan: Stuntmaster on PS One

Kickin dudes in the crotch. Because justice and grandfathers and whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone kidnaps his grandpa so Jackie goes on an adventure to save him which mostly entails collecting masks, because who doesn’t love awkward platforming and item collection (kill me).  Luckily this is a world where 99% of the population are gang members who want to fight you.  You won’t be completely bored chasing masks you never wanted because you’ll be hitting thugs with fish and car mufflers.

It isn’t good.  It isn’t fun.  It IS going to get played for charity.

UPickVG IV: Introducing… the Mystery Games

For UPickVG IV, you’ve got a new option on the list of Available Games that you can donate to see us play: the Mystery Game. The great and mysterious Mystery Game! It could be anything!

Family Guy: A boat's a boat, but the mystery box could be anything!

Well, any game, anyway. The Mystery Game is not a boat. It’s definitely a game. But it could be any game! Even a game about boats!

When you donate for the Mystery Game, you’re donating for one hour of a mysterious game that is not elsewhere on the Available Games list. (So there’s Hint #1: it’s a game other than anything else that’s on the list!) But actually, “Mystery Game” is a bit of a misnomer – it really should be plural: “Mystery Games.”

UPickVG IV - Mystery Games

Luigi and Garrus are guarding the Mystery Games so that no one can sneak a peek

There will be 10 total Mystery Games available for UPickVG IV. Each carefully wrapped with some nice doodles on the outside of the wrapping, courtesy of Gamemasters Chip and Grant, to give a helpful clue as to the contents of each package (or just make things more confusing – what do those frowny faces with X eyes even mean!?!).

When the Wheel of Destiny lands on a Mystery Game (and it will… if there are enough donations for “Mystery Game” to get into the Top 5!), the Player on shift for that hour will get to pick from the box of Mystery Games, using only the drawings on the outside of the package as their clues. They will then unwrap the package so that all may learn its contents, and play the game within for one hour – no matter what it is!

Once the game is revealed, you’ll be able to donate for that game specifically, just like any other game on the list, if you want to see another hour of it later in the marathon. Or, you can donate for “Mystery Game” again, and force a Player to choose again from the now-smaller selection of Mystery Games!

What if Chip or Grant is the Player on shift when the Mystery Game comes up on the Wheel? Don’t they know what the games are? Yup – that’s why, if the Wheel lands on Mystery Game during one of their shifts, they don’t get to pick the game for themselves! Someone else in the crew (the rest of us have no idea what those games could be) will do the picking for a Grant or Chip shift.

Will the audience get to help pick which Mystery Game package we want to see opened and played? Probably! It depends on the Player, but most of us are inclined to ask the Chat’s opinion on things. So make sure you have a Twitch.tv login before UPickVG IV starts, so you can make your opinions known!

Can I donate for the Mystery Game right now so that it’ll get in the Top Five and all this magical mystery stuff will happen? Yes friend, you can: Donate now!

Donate for clean water in Uganda!

Steel Battalion, AKA, Never Enough Hands

[Editor’s Note: While the rest of us were busy doing important preparing-for-the-charity-marathon-that’s-only-two-weeks-away things, Grant snuck in here and wrote another one of his “reviews.” Once again, we’re terribly sorry, and would like to apologize in advance.]

Steel_battalion

DIS A PICTAR OF DA CUNTROLLAR. IT PRITTY GUD

Steel Battalion has 40 buttons, two giant flight sticks, and three foot pedals.  I have enough mental capacity to handle a controller with about 20 buttons.  Rigorous scientific testing and some 2nd grade math skillz tell me that I need at least two humans in order to play Steel Battalion.  (I also need one highly qualified spelly checky device for the word Battalion.  Batallion.  Battallium.  Bertollyn.  Bat Talon.)  Anyway- two people.  Maybe three.

steel cockpit

Confused about what you’re looking at? So am I.

But two random humans aren’t drift compatible.  Things are great while we practice walking forward.  We high five while we successfully make a left turn and shoot a little tank.  Then a big mech runs our way and all hell breaks loose- I’m scared, you’re angry, you yell something at me but I don’t hear you because I’m trying to remember where the reload button is so you reach across me to push WHATEVER THANKS NOW I CANT SEE but I guess all that beeping means we got shot or something and there’s dirt on the windshield so someone find the windshield washer button please and now someone else got off the couch because being a noisy backseat mech driver wasn’t enough was it?  YOU NEED TO PUSH BUTTONS TOO?  GREAT and now I have no idea whats happening and I think I dropped the whole tank of ammo when I meant to reload earlier and yeahhhhhh I know I just jumped instead of hitting the breaks but there are lots of pedals down at my feet and OH FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THE COCKPIT IS ON FIRE SOMEONE PLEASE HIT THE EJECT BUTTON NOW

5/5  Would donate for again.

[Editor’s other note: Yeah… sorry. But at least you can donate to see Grant or another team member try to play an hour of this glorious disaster… if that’s any consolation.]

Behind the Scenes: Our Streaming Setup “After”

If you took a look at our streaming setup “before,” just a few short months ago, you might have noticed that things here at U-Pick were literally held together with tape and sheer love. But we’ve spent the last few months pouring even more love (but a lot less tape) into our setup, and we’re pleased to share the results with you.

With no further ado, here’s what we’re working with for our rehearsals nowadays:

The “After” pictures:

Our setup will look slightly different during UPickVG IV – same equipment for the most part, but we’ll be in a totally different space!

Joshua (Streaming Computer)’s Specs:

Capture Card: Micomsoft SC-512N1-L/DVI Capture Card
CPU:
Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 113.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
Storage Drives:
OCZ RevoDrive 350 Series 480GB PCI-E Solid State Drive (video recording)
Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5″ Solid State Drive (operating system and programs)
2x 1 TB hard disks in a RAID 0 Array (additional video recording)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

Webcam: Logitech Webcam C930e
Microphone: Blue Microphones Snowball USB Microphone (Electric Blue)
The Buttons: Optimus Mini Three keyboard

Tune in June 12th – 14th to see how all this equipment stands up to 49-straight hours of live-streaming and shenanigans!

Bonus Points: Can you find our old camera, Gerald, lurking somewhere in the photos? We keep him around as a backup! Or… is he hanging around waiting for his chance to exact revenge on us for replacing him?!?

How to Unlock the Secret Ending in Battletoads

Hey there, gamers!  Chip Chasterson here with the top secret tricks to master your Nintendo Entertainment System.  This week, I got the inside scoop from Rare on how to unlock the secret ending in their latest brawler bash, Battletoads.  Check it out!

Battletoads: Level 1 - Ragnarok's Canyon

By now, you’ve wrecked the robot in Ragnarok’s Canyon and crushed the crows in the Wookie Hole.  Now it’s time to tackle the tricky Turbo Tunnel.  While a lot of other websites will tell ya that this is only the third level in Battletoads, we’ve gotten the official word from Rare that the Turbo Tunnel is actually the secret final level!  How do you get the real ending?  Clean out your ears and listen up!

First things first, ya gotta take care of those slimy Scuzz.  Just give ‘em the Big Bad Boot or the Jawbuster and these rats will kick the bucket.  After a few well-placed punches, you’re ready to hop on your Speed Bike to freedom!

Battletoads Turbo Tunnel

Once you’re sitting pretty on the Speed Bike, you will notice some pink walls showing up on the right side of the screen.  While every part of your Gamer Skillz(™) is telling ya to dodge the walls, you wanna run into these rose-colored rocks to unlock the true ending.  I know it sounds crazy, and the instruction manual says to watch out, but that thing is full of lies!  Drive into the walls and save the day!

After you crash into those walls enough times, you will be treated to the real ending for Battletoads- Game Over, You Win!

Battletoads Secret Ending

Want to see us try for the “secret ending?” Battletoads is one of over 40 games you can make us play for your enjoyment, by donating money to clean water projects in UPickVG IV! Donate now for Battletoads!

UPickVG IV: How the Wheel of Destiny Works

UPickVG's Wheel of Destiny

All hail the Wheel of Destiny! Photo by Steve Petrucelli

During the U-Pick Video Game Marathon for Charity, two things determine the games we play for your amusement: your donations, and the Wheel of Destiny.

As donations come in, we log them according to the game that was requested in each donation. Every dollar is logged as 1 Point for that game (and yes, cents are logged as 1/100th of a point!), and the Live Ranking of all the games is updated.

UPickVG Game Rankings

An example of how the live rankings might appear

This is where the Wheel of Destiny takes over. Once per hour, starting ten minutes before we play the first game, we spin the wheel. Whatever number it lands on, we play the game in that slot for the next hour. (The ten minutes is to give us time to change games/systems.) The game that the wheel lands on? Well, not only do we play it for an hour, but it also loses all of its points, and goes back to the bottom of the ranking. If you want to see another hour of it, you’ll have to donate for that game again to get it up into the top of the rankings again!

Jen spins the Wheel of Destiny

Photo by Steve Petrucelli

We’ve been known to tweak the way that the Wheel of Destiny works over time. The pictures you see here are from UPickVG II (2013), when we did a straight-up Rankings 1 through 7 on the wheel, plus a “Democracy” space (which correlated to a long-running poll).

This was cool, but it taught us that Democracy was heavily overweighted (a 1-in-8 chance to land on it, and the #1 game changed infrequently), and that there was no real incentive to get games above the #7 slot, since that slot had the same odds as the game ranked #1. From the example chart above, you can see why that matters: to get a game to #7, you’d only have to donate $13.38 in this example, but the #1 slot would cost at least $100.01 in donations (big difference!).

Since UPickVG III – The Battle of the Birthdays (2014), we’ve switched to a weighted-wheel – which we think you’ll like better. Because after all, if you donated enough to get a game into Rank #1, shouldn’t the game you picked have better odds on the wheel than the game in 5th place? We think so.

How the Wheel is Weighted for UPickVG IV:

Ranking #of Wedges Probability
#1 3 37.5%
#2 2 25.0%
#3 1 12.5%
#4 1 12.5%
#5 1 12.5%

So in our example above, where the game ranked #5 (Steel Battalion) has $20 in points, the #2 game (Tokyo Jungle) has $25, and the #1 game (Buck Bumble) has $100, you could donate just $5.01 to Steel Battalion to double its chances on the wheel! Or you could donate $80.01 to triple its chances (or donate $20.01 and get 3 friends to do the same)!

Naming a Game for a Specific Player

Stephonee rages out about Zelda II

The Wheel made Stephonee play Zelda II. Photo by Steve Petrucelli.

You can’t name a Player in your donation comment, only a game – so if you’re interested in seeing a certain player have to play a certain game… how can you make that happen?

It’s all in the timing:

For any given player, the best time to donate starts one hour before that Player’s shift starts, up to one hour before their shift ends. The only exception to this rule is the very first Player (this year: Grant) – the time to donate for a game for his first shift is now – it started when donations opened (but the window still closes one hour before the end of his shift).

An example: Let’s say you really want me (Stephonee) to play some Steel Battalion, because watching me launch an 80-year-old woman out of a vertical-tank-mech-thing -with the largest controller ever made- is what you consider a laugh riot. Fair enough. The times to donate for Steel Battalion for my shift would be Sunday, June 13th between 11am and 3pm (EDT), so that’s when you would want to lay out your donation and name “Steel Battalion” in your comment.

So if you’ve got a strong preference as to who plays which games, consult the Player Shift Schedule before making your donation(s). But if you don’t have a strong preference, just go ahead and donate right now! Either way, 100% of your donation will go to clean water projects in Uganda – so you can have an impact on the Wheel of Destiny and a real person’s real-life destiny, too.

Donate for clean water in Uganda!

UPickVG IV: The Available Games List

Your requests have been heard, the votes are in, and now the UPickVG IV list of available games is finally here! Below you will find all the possible games that we may play in the 48-hour-long video game marathon that starts on June 12th. But remember, we’ll only play a game if you donate for it! So check out the list below, then head straight over to the donation page to formally request the game(s) you want to see us play.

Game System
Aquanaut’s Holiday PS1
Batman and Robin Genesis
Battletoads NES
Beautiful Katamari XBOX 360
Body Harvest N64
Buck Bumble N64
Buffy the Vampire Slayer XBOX
Commando NES
Dark Souls PS3
Deadly Premonition XBOX 360
Fatal Frame II XBOX
Goat Simulator XBOX 360
GoldenEye 007 N64
Hannah Montana: The Movie XBOX 360
Hello Kitty Cube Frenzy PS1
Hey You, Pikachu! N64
Hyrule Warriors Wii U
I Am Bread PC
Ico PS2
Jackie Chan Stuntmaster PS1
Octodad PC
Pilotwings 64 N64
Pokémon Snap N64
Razor Freestyle Scooter PS1
Red Dead Redemption XBOX 360
Ristar (the Shooting Star) Genesis
River City Ransom NES
Shadow of the Collosus PS2
Shining Force Genesis
Silent Hill 2 PS2
Silent Hill Shattered Memories Wii
Sonic and Knuckles Genesis
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire N64
Steel Battalion XBOX
Super Mario 3D World Wii U
Super Mario 64 N64
Super Mario World SNES
Super Metroid SNES
Superman 64 N64
Tail of the Sun PS1
TES II: Daggerfall PC
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time SNES
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask N64
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time N64
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Gamecube
Tokyo Jungle PS3
WarioWare Gameboy Advance
Zombies Ate My Neighbors SNES
MYSTERY GAME WHO KNOWS?

 

But what is this… “Mystery Game” thing? Wouldn’t you like to know! And actually, so would we! Our gamemasters, Chip and Grant, have picked out a few extra games to have on-hand during the marathon. They’ve wrapped them up tightly and discretely in packaging that conceals the identity of the games within – and we think they’ve even done that Men-In-Black-flashy-thing to themselves – so they might not even know what the games are!

If you donate for “Mystery Game” and the Wheel of Destiny lands on it, we’ll grab one of the mystery packages, unwrap it, and play an hour of whatever that game is! Looking for a little more mystery in your life and in UPickVG IV? Donate and put “Mystery Game” in your comment!

Donate for clean water in Uganda!Whether you donate for a Mystery Game or one of the fine games listed above, we can’t wait to see what you pick! And of course, don’t forget to come back and tune in at 7pm Eastern on June 12th to see how it all goes down.

Rick Grimes: Why don't crabs give to charity?

Sauce: http://imgur.com/gallery/gspD3Vp

Donate for clean water in Uganda!