Okamigakure Hosted Tournament #2

I decided last year during my birthday party that I'd start hosting an annual tournament. Last year's tournament actually ended up being three tournaments, and it took WAAAAAAAY longer than I expected to get through them (If you're interested, I've got a playlist for them here). I'm going to make sure that this year there is just one tournament, and I'm relatively certain a lot more of our partygoers will enter, since this year's game isn't going to be too niche, like Skylanders is.
While I don't actually know when my big birthday shindig is going to be yet, since I've got a ton of other crap to plan beforehand, I DO know what game we'll be playing this year. A few of the core Okamigakure already know and console-permitting have had time to get a little bit of practice in, but I'm going to announce here what we'll be playing and streaming this year!
The 2015 Okamigakure hosted tournament will be.... 

POWER STONE

When I have more information on the time and all that jazz, I'll let you guys and gals (and also my partygoers of course) know! I've got to decide the rules we'll be playing by and all that.
You might be wondering why I chose Power Stone 1 and not 2, but that's actually a simple question to answer. I prefer 1 over 2. While Power Stone 2 had more expansive levels, more items and four player action, there actually was a whole set of combos removed from the game. That's one thing that I absolutely abhor in game design, when you remove something that existed in a previous game in a series. Examples that I ESPECIALLY ABHOR include removing the blinkers from cars in Saints Row the Third and REMOVING TWO WHOLE BUTTONS in Marvel vs Capcom 2. 

Even the best laid plans go awry

I finally got around to asking Liz about YouTube/Twitch stuff and I got a definite "no" this time about the Kaos Doom Challenge stream. She definitely wants me to do it with someone else. I am not sure who I'm going to be running through it with at this point, but I'm probably going to have it done by the end of the year. At this point, I don't have any real intention of buying SuperChargers, so Trap Team just might be my last game in the series. Honestly, Skylanders isn't as fun without someone to share the awe with.
Though, speaking of Skylanders, I've gotten the second Skylander done in my Skylander Path Guides series, and I just got the a-okay from Liz to start working on the third. I'm going to be explaining Eye-Brawl's paths next and I wanted to make sure she was okay with me using her baby, Pumpkin Eye-Brawl. Really the only person that plays him and S2 Chop Chop is her, they're her babies. I just have custody, I guess you could say, haha.
She also gave me the a-ok to use her stories, so as Season 1 (I'm going to do 20 episodes of my life as a whole, mostly my family, and then another 20 episodes -- a season 2 if you will, of stories from school) of Unfair-Y Tales draws to a close, you can expect to hear more about her! Ideally I would have liked for her to actually tell the stories herself, but something tells me that won't happen, ever. Heck, one of the reasons I started Unfair-Y Tales was for her, and as of right now I'm pretty sure she's going to be the absolute last person on the planet to watch them!
I'm also going to be going full circle with the series as the first season comes to a close. Remember how I mentioned all those "stories for later" at the beginning? Well, all of them are coming up real soon! I've been getting better and learning more about PowerDirector with both of these series, so expect more from me, editing-wise, in the future! 

Where have I gotten in the last year?

So it's been about a year since I last posted what I was working towards to improve my internet gaming cred, and a lot has changed since that last post! I've spent the last year or so buffing up my YouTube and Twitch channels, and I've even been able to sink some cash into upgrades that were needed. 
I posted last time that I was working towards getting an HD Capture Card, and I fulfilled that goal, with my ElGato HD60. You haven't seen me use it as much for YouTube as of yet, but that will be changing in the near future. I've been using it mostly for Twitch. I recently upgraded to Win10 though and I'm having a few issues with streaming, so hopefully I can get all of that sorted out as soon as possible. 
I also got my hands on an HD camcorder, thanks to Grim, which really helped me expand my repertoire of videos. It's so much easier for me to work with things that aren't on screen, like Unfair-Y Tales, to give an example! I owe him huge props for that. 
While we did do quite a few Superpowerful Bonanza videos (Which you can find here), I'm not sure if I'll be doing any more board game videos on my channel. My buddy Tethrinblaze is hoping to start up a little more of that in the future, but I'm not really all that interested in board games, truth be told. 
Also thanks to Teth I picked up an S-Video cable for the GameCube so you can expect at least a couple more GameCube videos coming in the near future, both on Twitch and YouTube. Now that I'm in a really good place, I've got time to work on and flesh out all the ideas I've been writing down and brainstorming about since I started to get serious about YouTube! 
Anyway, the things that I'm currently working towards are:

• PC Upgrades

Moreso than just the RAM, I'm strongly considering also getting an upgrade for my graphics card. The more power the more games I own that I will potentially be able to share with you guys! This is the only major item that I haven't had a chance to set any money aside for from the last time I wrote one of these up. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

• Laptop Battery

 As you know, I love me some good old fashioned tech, and while it's probably about time I get rid of my laptop altogether, I'm just not ready. I could really do with a working battery though, as my laptop has begun to freak out from all the direct power, and I mean... It's a laptop, it sucks to have to treat it like a desktop because you can't move it. I have a Sager NP2090, which is the same thing as a COMPAL IFL90, so batteries are kind of hard to find. I'm trying to find a good third party, but I need to do a little more research at this point. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears to those as well!

• S-Video Cable for Wii

I now have an S-Video cable for all the consoles I own that are capable of accepting one (PS1-3, GameCube and Dreamcast) except for the Wii. While the quality improvements to the video are only viewable by me and whoever else is with me, splitting the signal makes sure that the video doesn't get incredibly dark. For some reason when you split a Yellow RCA cable's signal and display it on both things you're splitting to, the signal ends up getting super dark. I've also got plans for quite a few Wii games' videos in the near future, and I'd like for them to be... As visually pleasing as possible.

The only other item that I'm looking for would be a digital camera, but I'm still kind of on the fence about that one. My old digital camera is sucking the life out of batteries like there's no tomorrow, but my camcorder has somewhat of a decent camera capability, so I don't think it's altogether necessary. Really, if I could get those three aforementioned things, I believe I would be set for the near future in regards to YouTube and Twitch! 

Another LP done, what next?

Well, as of today my Sonic R commentary-less run has been completed, and now I'm sitting here wondering if I should start a new LP or a new ongoing series for YouTube. Speaking of LPs, the Genghis Khan II one I was supposed to be doing on Twitch ended up being a complete bust. Game is hard, boring and all around, just not very interesting or fun. There's no way I'd be able to stomach playing through the whole thing. On top of that, absolutely no one wanted to watch. Teth went so far as to tell me the game was boring after I was already struggling to continue to play it!
I have the basics down for a new game series as well as a new vlog(?) series. Don't worry, I'm not going to quit Unfair-Y Tales or anything like that any time soon. I'm actually considering making it weekly instead of every other week for the second season, which I'm going to be subtitling THE SCHOOL YEARS, and it will be all stories I've picked up via school. A couple high school stories, but mostly college stories, because there's a just a HUGE mass of them from those four years. The best four years of my life, seriously!
I'm getting off topic for this post though... As usual. Anyway, I'm thankful for having good friends that are always willing to help a brother out, so you can expect to see a lot of Okamigakure-centric videos and streams coming up in the near future! I know that I'm not in this alone, and I want to make that more apparent to the rest of you guys as well! Speaking of that, if you haven't had a chance yet, and you want to keep up with what we're doing as a whole, why not drop by our clan facebook page and leave a like? I swear there's a lot of good stuff coming from us in the near future, so stay tuned!