Tako Dance

This is Tako Dance! A short experimental stop motion piece with a song about how octopus must dance to survive! My friend Mr Octopus, won't you come back? You're so delicious! (note: I used google translate, so I'm not entirely sure that the grammar is 100% correct. Also, this isn't my actual singing voice, this is was done to sound intentionally squeaky/ nasally.) You can sing along with the lyrics below the video! Enjoy!



Lyrics:
Tako san anata wa watashi no tomodachi
ware ware ga deau basho umi
Ao to aka to midori
to pinku to murasaki

Kore wa warui
anata wa oishii
watashi no tako sushi

*Nigeru tame ni odorimasu
Tabun anata wa escape shimasu
Dansu no tako, Chokawaii Tako
Tako tako tako tako dance!

Anata wa hijo ni oku no iro motte iru
watashi wa anata o taberu

*repeat

Ha! At least I got it to rhyme!

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 37: Daze Before Christmas

What?! A Christmas Special?! No Way! Daze before Christmas is a holiday themed video game released for the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo. Santa Clause is dealing with some issues and takes it out on unsuspecting victims by throwing flaming gifts down their chimneys. Happy Holidays Everyone!

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 36: Nangoku Shounen Papuwa

Nangoku Shounen Papuwa is an action platformer for the super famicom based on an anime by the same name. Let's check it out!

Atomic Robo Kid Level 11 speed run

This is speed run of level 11 in the game Atomic Robo Kid. It actually happened by accident when I was recording the footage for the episode (see a couple posts down). Watch the little robo zoom zoom through the level like a boss.



Also, I got my green screen about a week ago. I haven't been able to try it out yet because I've been way too busy with work and stuff but I was thinking that I might do a short stop motion of the Robo Kid in one of the levels. I thought to myself, where in the world am I going to find the background since this game is so obscure...then I thought to just remove the sprite layer in the emulator and screen capture that. Derp.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 35: Divine Sealing

This week Mel discusses the Smutty Shmup "Divine Sealing" for the Sega Genesis. Warning: NSFW

No, you casuals

A rant about facebook games and micro-transactions

For the longest time I tried to stay away from facebook games, not only because of my own personal bias against social games, but because I already knew about the bullshit micro-transactions, not to mention the lack of quality games in general. It works like this, purchasing credits with real world money is completely optional, the credits are then put towards power ups and exclusives in-game that would be otherwise inaccessible. The psychology behind said transactions is simple enough. They work on a simple rewards system, they'll let you win at first, and even though no skill of your own was lost and levels haven't gotten any harder, you'll start to lose a little bit. Just as you hit a low, the game will pick you right back up. They will repeat this pattern until you start to wonder whether or not you should actually invest money into the game. What they are doing is called operant conditioning. In layman's terms; they're fucking with you, intentionally, so that you will hand over your hard earned cash. They will give a little, and take a lot more. They will intentionally make you lose so that you start to actually think that you need the things that they can provide to you, which are completely unnecessary.

Now, I have no problem with paying for a good game, hell, I don't have a problem paying for a bad game so long as it's entertaining. What I do have a problem with is micro-transactions within so-called "free" games. Because now instead of a company being completely honest with you (just selling you a game), they will hide behind their games pretending like they're doing you a service providing a free game that is designed to make you fail. Not only is it frustrating, most of the games are those in which you are doing simple mindless tasks in succession. Those patterns play into it too. When you give them just a little bit of that money, you will think "oh well, that's not too bad, I can afford that", but as you do the same tasks and keep justifying it the same way, that money adds up and you have lost more money (and precious time) than you had expected. No one will be there to pick you up when it happens, the gaming company won't say they're sorry or admit to their knowingly draining your bank account, but you're just as much to blame. YOU, the PLAYER, let it happen.

So what do you do? Educate yourself to their tactics, and don't let shit like that happen. It's that simple. I, personally, have never given any of my money to those facebook games because it just seemed stupid. Of course, I'm only a few college credits shy of having a BA in psychology, so I guess it was probably obvious to me. In other words, the reason I wrote this article is because I know that there are some people out there that are still completely oblivious to the sick game that they've become part of.

Another reason I wrote this is because, Fuck you Tetris Battle! They use those very tactics to try to sell you "armor" to stop from people stealing your "stars". If you start doing too well, they will slow down the game, make it so that you have to press whichever key more than once to drop a piece, and just generally mess up the controls. And no, I'm not bitching about the game because I'm not good at it, in fact I'm really good at puzzle games, especially Tetris. I have played about 20+ other versions of Tetris, solo and against other players, I have set records, and NEVER had I had a problem until this piece of shit trying to sell me virtual crap came along. Tetris Battle on Facebook, I quit!

Game wisely everyone!

Enjoy a Chiptunes Christmas

Sly Fawkes releases A Very Chiptune Christmas

While I don't particularly celebrate the holiday season, it's pretty hard to ignore when every shopping venue is playing the same old tired Christmas tunes. What's a gamer to do? Well, if you're into 8-bit tunes, or chiptunes then you can celebrate the holidays in your own way. Chiptune artist Sly Fawkes has released an album of Christmas classics for your listening pleasure entitled "A Very Chiptune Christmas" that can be purchased via Amazon and iTunes. If owning an album is more of your thing you can pick up a limited edition physical copy of the tracks on EBAY, but hurry fast as there are only 100 copies being made available. Enjoy all of the Christmas classics without the over production and cheesy lyrical content. Just sweet sweet chiptunes, bringing you holiday magic with bleeps and bloops.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 34: Atomic Robo Kid

Mel takes a look at Atomic Robo Kid on the Sega Genesis.

LMFAO Lalala Pixel Heart Necklace Tutorial with Perler Beads

In this tutorial, I show you how to make the Pixel Heart from LMFAO's Lalala music video using perler or fuse beads. This is my first not-video game-related pixel art. For those, check out my "video game art collection" video.

Link to the pattern: Click here

Planet of the Ape Escape

The Ape Escape franchise gets a gritty reboot. PS3 exclusive.

New Overproduced Intro!

Super thanks to DJ A-bomb for remixing my song, and a super thanks to Cam Studio for making work-arounds so I don't have to subscribe to a certain site to get sick effects. Enjoy the new intro, new videos/episodes coming soon!

Mel the Cooking Gamer Girl

Join us 11/19/11 at around 2pm-ish

Live stream tomorrow! Around 2ish or something. Join myself, Shiara, Greg, and whoever else decides to show up as we cook Japanese food. Learn stuff, get educated, enjoy talk about nerdy stuff. Tune in Tomorrow!

Watch live streaming video from melthegamergirl at livestream.com

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Trading Cards

I found these crazy cards at the Arizona Collector's Market. Let's take a look shall we? This is Retro Show n' Tell: Sonic the Hedgehog trading cards.

Historical Fan Fic for Sonic Generations Prize Pack

I don't usually write fan fics, but when I do, they're for contests with sweet prize packs. Check out my entry into 1up.com's "least offensive Sonic fanfic" contest; http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9091089

Tour de Arcade - Phoenix

Finally, after months of loafing about, a new video is here! This is Tour de Arcade Phoenix. Check out all of the best and worst that the Phoenix Gaming scene has to offer all rolled up into one convenient easy to watch video.

Big Recap of 2 Weeks of Awesome

It was totally worth it

I would have written this days ago if it weren't for being so sick. I'm just now getting over a cold so extreme it makes me wonder how I was able to make it through at all. Resilience I suppose. Speaking of which it's been a pretty crazy last couple of weeks! First there was Devastation, the next weekend was the 24 hour gaming marathon for charity, and lastly a super spectacular surprise that I got today. First let's talk about how awesome Devastation was.

Devastation 2011

While the event officially lasted 3 days for normal attendees, it would last 5 days for myself. I headed out to the convention center on Wednesday afternoon to set up my booth. When I got there, they had only given me one table but I asked and they were able to set me up with another. The staff at Devastation are some of the nicest and most professional people I have ever worked with. It was refreshing to see a group set up an event of this caliber and still keep their cool. Set up went smoothly, well as smoothly as it could considering this is the first convention I've sold my art at. I got a little bit of rest that evening, the excitement for the weekend to come kept me awake.

Thursday was the "preview night" of the convention. It's basically for a limited number of attendees including other vendors and people who registered early. It was pretty slow for the most part but I got to meet the awesome people that shared the booths on either side of mine. To my right was House of Haha, a couple that makes funny geeky t-shirt designs. And to my left was Boson, a company selling specialty 3D glasses for gaming. We all watched each others booths when we went on bathroom/smoke breaks. Everyone was so helpful! I didn't sell much on preview night. Just a couple of pixel characters. The highlight of the evening was the catering (free food is always awesome), the bright party like atmosphere, and being able to play on the arcade machines and consoles before it got packed.

That evening, when I was walking home from the train (light rail) station, a strange thing happened. I tripped on the sidewalk! I tripped and I had a pretty heavy load of stuff on my back so I must have fell in a weird way, because I caught myself wrong. I didn't think much of it as I got up and brushed myself off. My knees hurt a little bit so I went to check out the damage, upon doing so I saw where the real damage had been done. My hand. More specifically, my right hand. My pinky was contorted in a freaky gross way that's comparable to something you'd see in a survival horror game. It didn't hurt all that much at first, but damn it looked terrible. As I was walking home I wondered if it could have been because I didn't leave earlier to see Voltaire in Scottsdale. When I got back to the apartment my bff gave me a ride to the ER where I had x-rays done. Turned out my pinky was both dislocated and broken. I sat there for quite some time cracking jokes with the people sitting in the room next to me from behind the curtain divider. Despite being in pain, everyone still seemed to be in good spirits, finding common ground in sarcastic humor. Later than sooner the doctor came in, poked me with a needle to numb my finger and then popped it back in place and put me in a cast. Pain killers were purchased and it was back to my place where I would get about 4 hours of sleep before getting up to take on the first official day of the convention.

I was back at the convention center on Friday morning. Soon as they let people through the door, business was booming at my booth. Pixel characters being sold left and right. Now I was going to use the funds to go to MagFest in January but now all of it had to go to pay for my doctor's bill since I, like many other working class folk, do not have health insurance. Regardless of my monetary situation, I can't put into words how amazing and humbling it is to have so many people buy my work. These things that I spent tireless nights and ungodly hours on. Someone, or rather, lots of people were actually buying my art. It's moments like this when all of the hard work really pays off. Everyone was full of energy and there was never a dull moment since the guys a couple booths down were playin' some awesome music throughout the entire event. Every once in a while I would break and take a look at all of the games and everything that was going on and get some footage for my video montage. There were also a bunch of familiar faces, people that I'd met at other events showed up too. It was great to see everyone again and talk about games, art, and everything else. Friday evening I hosted Video Game Trivia at my booth. The person who won was someone that had won before at Cade's last trivia event. Everyone did a great job and I even gave prizes to 2nd and 3rd place winners. These included pixel art, paint prints, and plushy mushrooms.

Saturday was the biggest and busiest day of all. There were probably twice as many people as there were on Friday. It was nuts! It was so busy that if it weren't for my good friends Shiara and Liz showing up, I wouldn't have been able to take any breaks. Throughout the day we all had fun sharing and selling pixel art, used games, and most importantly raffle tickets. The raffle tickets were important because it was my last effort to raise money for the 24 hour game marathon for Extra Life. Everyone had lots of fun winning prizes too! Saturday night I hosted a costume contest at my booth, to which only a couple of people showed up to. It was all good though. The first prize went to a Chun Li. She will be getting her own article on Phoenix Gamer some time later this week. We stayed pretty late and stuck around for a while after we closed up our area and played video games for a while. While I was playing Puzzle Fighter 2 this guy comes up and sits next to me and challenges me to a match. Of course I accepted. I asked him if he was in any tournaments. Turns out he won 2nd place in the Blazblue tournament. A serious gamer! I kicked his butt at Puzzle Fighter though. He asked how I got so good and I shared strategies including building combos, safe zones, patterns, and how this game can be compared to a fighting with the counter attacks and such. He ended up beating me a couple of times too. It was so much fun to have a challenge like that and an honor to play against such a prestigious pro gamer. Hands were shook, and it was a good game all around. I went and played some Metal Slug and called it a night.

Sundays are the worst. The last day of the con is always a little disheartening. Today was the finals of all of the tournaments so the audience was super pumped. I also joined a tournament myself halfway through the day; Mario Kart 64. I didn't win but it was fun and I got a pat on the back for attempting to play with my hand in a cast. We sold more pixel art and had a lot of requests for stuff we already sold out of. At least now I'll know what to make more of the next time we do another event like this. I also raffled of my largest piece of pixel art to date (pictured above). Now, while most cons end early on Sunday, usually midday, Devastation is awesome in that they were open and operating until 11pm that night so it was like getting an extra day/half day of convention. Without a doubt Devastation has to be one of the BEST conventions that I have ever gone to and/or been a part of. I didn't want it to end. But of course, it had to. I want to give a HUGE thanks again to all of the staff and everyone that was so awesome, nice, helpful, and that bought my art. You guys are what make the Phoenix gaming community so great and I look forward to seeing you all again next year!

When I got home I slept for a day or so and when I woke up my throat was scratchy but I didn't think anything of it. I thought that it might have been because I kept having to speak over the crowd at the con...

Extra Life Marathon for Charity

Just in case you hadn't heard, Extra Life is a 24 hour gaming marathon and charity event to raise money for kids in local children's hospitals. This year was my first year participating. With games and consoles lined up I awoke Friday evening...feeling sick as a dog. But no worries! This is something that had to be done! I started brewing my coffee and popped in the games. There's not really much else to say other than I played video games for 24 hours straight. Well, actually, later in the evening on Saturday a couple of friends helped me out with the last stretch as we played Marvel vs Capcom 3, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, and Guilty Gear XX. That was tons of fun. I ended the night by failing at Jet Grind Radio, even though I've played it a billion times. The cast got in the way and it's tough when you've been up for that long. And then I played Psyconauts. Thanks again to everyone that donated! You guys are the best! I'm sure out little gamers that needed our help will remember this for years to come.

After all was said and done, I passed out. Woke up the next afternoon feeling a sense of dread wash over me as the sickness twisted it's nasty grip on the last threads of fun-easy-going-pushing-myself-too-far-again-awesomeness and I fell into the post-event depression. Not much I can do until I recover I suppose. Then I checked my email today to find out that I FINALLY got the option to monetize my Youtube videos. I've been working my ass off for the last year and half, it's about time. Man was I excited! But then...It's back to work. Like, real work. If only we could live our lives making a living at writing and making videos about video games. But that's not the way the world works, is it?

Streaming Extra Life 2011

Join me at 12:00 midnight Friday night through Saturday as we stream the 24 hour gaming marathon for the charity Extra Life. There is still time to donate so please do so by clicking here.

Watch live streaming video from melthegamergirl at livestream.com

Back from Devastation!

Devastation 2011 was one of the best conventions I've ever Been to in my entire life!

And if you've personally known me for a while, you'd know that's been a lot of conventions. I'm super busy preparing for the Extra Life charity event this saturday so I won't be able to post a full blog about the con for a little while. In fact, I'll probably just combine the two events in one super mega-post. Until then, here is my super awesome video of the event;
Edit: This first video is a shortened version of the other. The longer one has some extras and a cute animation about how I broke my hand.

Devastation!

Devastation is here! Phoenix Arizona's Biggest gaming conventions and one of the most awesome gaming tournaments in the WORLD! I have a booth there where I am selling my pixel art and holding many events. I set up today and will be posting updates as the con progresses with a HUGE blog post after the event and loads of video! Here is the first update (posted earlier on facebook):

Along with the limited prints and pixel art, you can come by and grab some consoles and old games! Here's what we're bringing; Snes, ps1, Dreamcast, Hyperscan (a piece of crap console, but great if you're a collector), controllers and peripherals, and a WHOLE bunch of games. Be sure to get a raffle ticket or 2 as half of the proceeds go to the Extra Life Charity to benefit our little gamers in local children's hospitals. Prizes given every hour on the hour! Video Game Trivia Friday night at 4pm, booth 207! Costume Contest Saturday 5pm! Trophy prize and full article on Phoenixgamer.com!!! How much awesome is this weekend going to be!!!

Party Hard Mode

The MC Chis show was awesome last night!

Got to hang with Mc Lars after the show too. He's super awesome. Hey, here's a video of the show!

Galaga Destination UGH!

Mel Reviews: Galaga Destination Earth

During my misadventures last weekend we were driving across the hot and dusty desert when we came across a small nameless thrift shop in the middle of nowhere. I was just looking for something to drink, but to my surprise this hole in the wall actually had some video games too. A small stack of original xbox games, some ps2 sports games, and some cases that appeared to be ps1 games. I rummaged through the stack and found Galaga: Destination Earth. No manual, no label, just a cracked plastic case with a disk inside. "How much for the game?" I asked the guy behind the counter. "I dunno, hows about $1?"
"SOLD!"

Without thinking twice, I gave the man his dollar and was out the door quicker than I had arrived. It's not that hole-in-the-wall places in the middle of nowhere scare me, it's just that...yeah, they scare the living bejeebers outta me for reasons too extensive to list in this post...which is supposed to be a game review. Moving right along!

When I got home the game sat in my bag until I finally found some time today to pick it up and play. Let me tell you, this ain't your momma's Galaga!
No sir, this is a completely new take on the entire series.
The opening sequence recaps the occurrences of the first game in a lengthy cut scene. After the events of the original Galaga, humans won the war against the aliens and everything was good, that is until humans decided that they wanted to colonize space. Guess where they wanted to colonize? In the area where the aliens were coming from. Oh yeah, fantastic idea! Let's piss off and attempt to take over the territory of our enemies after years of peace for no particularly good reason. Who feels like another war?! YEEHAW! Needless to say, the aliens aren't happy and you're sent in to uh, save people or something. It's kind of ass backwards story-wise.

The controls are similar to the original; just move and shoot, move and shoot. Simple right? Wrong! The first wave is classic, you just shoot them as you would in the original arcade game, enemies above, but then shit hits the fan. This game, as a shooter, doesn't know what it wants to be. Your camera is constantly changing perspectives with each wave. One minute you'll be in a side scrolling perspective, the next you'll be in a tunnel shooter, then it's a rail shooter, then back to the tunnel perspective, all while you're trying to shoot enemies and avoid projectiles as well as space debris. This may sound cool in theory, I mean, Einhander got it right, but this game does it all wrong. When you're in the the tunnel shooter parts of the stages (which is a majority of the time) you'll find yourself flailing around trying to figure out the difference between up and down, and where the aliens are at in relation to your ship. I'll remind you this is a PS1 game so the graphics are a little bit, how you say, confusing. Well, the graphics were pretty good for the ps1 in general as far as the look goes, but it's really hard to tell the distance between you and an enemy. They fly all around the screen, get closer and farther away, but you can never really tell where they are in relation to your ship so sometimes you'll run into them, other times you'll miss shooting them all together. This game has serious depth perception issues and it's extremely frustrating.

Another thing that really pissed me off was the shooting speed. Your ship fires so slow that you could literally get up and grab a snack or two before you'd need to press the shoot button again. It's that bad. There are power ups that you can pick up but they don't seem to do anything at all. There's also health packs. Yes, health packs in a Galaga game. Unlike the original, you don't die if you get hit, you have a health bar in the top left of your screen. You will need every ounce of that health and the 3 additional ships you're given to make any progress in the game at all due to the terrible muddled messes that make up each level.

Another fun addition to the game, and they might have been going somewhere with this, is that each new level gives you objectives or missions that you must finish to complete the level. These, however, aren't fun at all because of the depth issues. Take for instance levels where you have to collect a certain number of an item. It's kind of hard when you're constantly screaming at your tv screen like an idiot, "WTF?! I TOTALLY HIT THAT! UGH!".

Because down is up and up is down and it still doesn't matter at all because this game has problems and wants to take it out on you. Because it hates you. It hates you because it knows that it will never be as good as the original. It makes everyone else around it suffer because IT suffers. This game is terrible and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Galaga: Destination Earth gets a 4/10

Mel's Squishy Pillows

Hey! Long time, no blog. This last weekend I was away doing not-so-game-related stuff. More specifically, I was in a rural part of Arizona photographing petroglyphs because I find that stuff extremely interesting. Speaking of photography, I also bought a tripod for $5 at a yard sale in the middle of nowhere. Now I'm back in the big city, where I belong, and am getting ready for Devastation 2011. There's less than 2 weeks left to pump out as many fun video game themed artsy-fartsy things to sell at my booth as I can. Today I made 1up mushroom pillows and also decided to test out my new tripod. Check out my extreme pillow making skills.

Charity Gamer

This October Mel plays for Arizona Children's Hospital

This October I will be playing video games for 24 hours straight to raise money for the local children's hospital. The thing is though, I can't do it without you! So please visit this site and donate today! As for what games I plan on playing...I'm not sure yet. But here's the deal, for every donation we get, I will post one game. So as many donations are made are as many games I will be playing in the 24 hours. There will also be live updates, contests, and prizes on the day of the event. So please join us in this awesome effort to do something great for the community through the power of game!



Update! Donations and Games:
1. Ape Escape (all 3 games)
2. Katamari Damacy
3. Donkey Kong Country
4. Sega Superstar Tennis
5. Psychonauts
6. Mario 1,2,&3
7. Monster Party
8. Jet Grind Radio
9. Qubed
10. Mario Party 7

Keep 'em coming! The more donations, the more games we throw into the mix!

Update: WIN A FREE 1 year GOLD XBOX live membership! Xbox has teamed up with Extra Life to give away 10 memberships to anyone that raises their sponsorship this week. If you donate $24 or more, and I win, I will hold a drawing and GIVE YOU the 1 year XBOX live membership on the day of the event. GO GO GO!!! CLICK HERE

Mel's Kitchen

Hey everyone! A couple of weeks ago I got asked to contribute to an up and coming site called 1up Your Life. They are a gaming site dedicated to healthier living for gamers. Today I made my first post in a series that was going to be called "cooking with mushrooms" but ended up just being called "Mel's Kitchen". Click here to see the first post.

Vistas of Game - The Final Episodes

It's the end of Vistas

I had already made all of the vistas of game videos in short amount of time to use as filler when I didn't have any other content to throw at you. These are the rest of those episodes. This means, yes, no more vistas of game. So enjoy the final four episodes. A new episode of Mel the Office Gamer Girl will be released when I have time to work on it. You know, if I got paid to make the not-filler videos they'd be released a hell of a lot more often. Just sayin'.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 33: Daruma Dojo

Is it Daruma Dojo or Dharma Dojo? Find out in this puzzle game for the super famicom. This episode also contains a brief explanation of what a daruma is.

Vistas of Game episode 19

What a delectable delight! Vistas of game is sweet with a flaky crust and gooey filling. Enjoy with a cup of assorted video game clips.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 32: Magical Pop'n

Magical Pop'n

In this episode I show you Magical Pop'n for the Super Famicom.

Old Content - New Venue

Quick Announcements!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that my content is now being featured over at Retro Fusion so check it out if you want to catch up on older episodes of Mel the Office Gamer Girl. My more current videos are still being posted at Mech Taco so check those out too. Of course you can check out my series at either of those sites as well as my Youtube channel (please subscribe!). There's a new episode of the main series coming this week so stay tuned!

New content, New venue

I will also be contributing to Dapgicc.net. Check back there to keep up with game development news and for reviews written by myself and other awesome contributors!

Mudkip Drank

Check out this drink I submitted to the Drunken Moogle!

Vistas of Game episode 18

Yo dawg, we heard you like video games so we put some video game clips in a video game video.

Pixel Art Promo Vid

Mega Massive Super Sale tomorrow on all things pixely. check it out:



Click HERE for le Ebay sale.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 17

The company provided lunch after the meeting with fresh video game clips delivered directly to our office. It's vistas of game episode 17! Guaranteed to be at your doorstep in less than 15 minutes or it's free!

Vistas of game episode 16

More video game clips edited into a nice little clump of entertainment.

Video Game Treasure Trove

When you're searching for used video game collections to resell, there's only one place to go; To the middle of nowhere! Cottonwood is a small town in Arizona where old people go to retire...retire and sell their kid's entire video game collections. Check out all these great yardsale finds. All of it cost less than $30. ALL OF IT. ps1, ps2, 3 snes, hyper scan, dreamcast, genesis, games, and accessories. Holy crap, awesome. I will be selling these online once everything cleaned up and in working order. (everything tested so far works, so it's looking good!)



Note: This isn't my personal collection. I'll eventually post a video of that. It's not really that impressive as I don't like to have a lot of stuff.

Also, for those that haven't heard, I'm taking a long break and am not sure when I'll be back. I won't have any new episodes of my main series up for a while. Life happens. It's been a pretty good year though! Thanks to everyone that's been watching and following my blog. You guys are the bestest!

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 31: Parodius

Parodius!

is a series of shoot 'em ups released by Konami. The games are a parody of the Gradius series and include a variety other Konami characters and wacky shenanigans.

Killer Filler

I know, I know, you might think I've been slacking, but I've been really busy completing all these custom orders for these pixel thingies. They sell, my videos do not. If I had a sponsor I would probably be making full episodes of Mel the Office Gamer Girl weekly, for now, it is an impossibility due to time constraints. Sorry, I have no idea when the next episode will be out, but... Here's some new content! 4, yes, 4 episodes of vistas of game! Yes it is filler, but hey, it's something!

The Minibosses at Comicon Phoenix

I forgot that I had even made this video. It just sat on my busy desktop collecting a couple weeks worth of proverbial dust. So here it is, video game music cover band, The Minibosses!

Creative progress and a Rant about Elitists

Now that my E3 coverage for Phoenix Gamer is done for now, I thought I'd finally get around to writing another bloggy update thing.

First off, I'm currently working on episode 31 of Mel the Office Gamer Girl. I won't say that it is for certain, but It's probably going to cover the Parodius series. I don't usually say what games I'm going to do my videos on, but I don't think it really matters at this point. I've got bigger fish to fry.

I've gotten a few requests as of lately to do a tutorial on how to make a video game show on a budget. I think that I may do this some time soon if I can find time between my other current projects. What projects are those might you ask? Well one is I got invited to contribute to a video game documentary. I don't want to disclose what it is right now because I don't want to see it fall into production limbo and then not happen so I'll just leave it here as in-the-works and will post updates as we work on the project.

I had also been invited to contribute to Retroware tv, but in the end they changed their mind because I mostly use emulators, you know, because the games I cover aren't super obscure and hard to find or anything. They say that some of their contributors use emulators “only sometimes”, and that's supposed to be somehow better than using them all the time (which I most certainly don't, I own a couple of the games I've covered so far). It's the same damn thing in my eyes, and that statement alone makes them seem like elitist hypocrites that I don't want to work with anyways. While modern game piracy does harm the industry and I don't encourage it, Game companies don't see any money made from the resale of older games. Most of the games that I've covered can't be found for less that $40-$80 a pop, and that's if you can find them at all! I won't pay that much for a used game, that's just absurd. Also, something you might not know, is that in my personal life I'm very much a minimalist, so I don't take pride in having piles of retro games just lying around to show off to people who probably don't give two shits anyways. I have a small organized collection of consoles and select games that that I play at my leisure, almost everything else is emulated because it's just about the gameplay. I want to show people games that have been forgotten about, or that they may not know about. I'm not going to tell people that they need to buy the games to enjoy them, especially when it's an impossibility for some. Enjoy the experience of playing games for fun, don't ruin the experience for others because you feel you need to justify the insane amounts of money spent on your collection. Okay, I really should stop there...

Aside from all that I've been working more on my art stuff and will be selling it at Arizona Collector's Marketplace on Saturdays, time permitting. Video Game Trivia will be going on again at CADE Gallery on the 16th of this month, hosted by myself with prizes provided by Phoenix Gamer, Bookmans, and CADE. I also have 2 more Documentaries that I'm helping work on but they aren't video game related so...yeah.

I've gotten a couple of voice over gigs this month, nothing too spectacular, just some stuff for online commercials and that sort of thing. Doesn't pay much, but it's good experience for sure. Hey, you know, if you need someone to do voice over for you or if you like my videos and would like to do a cross-over or promo thing please do let me know. You can contact me via everywhere.

Mel's E3 updates at Phoenix Gamer

Hey, I'll be posting E3 stuff throughout the week over at Phoenix Gamer. The first article going over all of the announcements that Microsoft made about new games, Xbox live, and exclusives, can be found here. More updates coming soon!

Update: Ubisoft takes the stage!

Check out the games they announced here.

Update: Sony Coverage

Check out what was revealed at the Sony Conference here.

Update: Nintendo Coverage

Nintendo was a disappointment with rehashes of already existing franchises and unimpressive "new" technology. Find out more here.

Comic Con Phoenix 2011 Highlights

Here are some highlights from the Phoenix Comic Con.

Video Game Art Collection

Mel doesn't just make video game videos, she also makes video game art

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 30: Yume Penguin Monogatari

Mel Plays a Konami game for the NES about a fat penguin.

Vistas of Game Episode 11

A robust cup of freshly brewed video game clips.

Tour de Arcade - Las Vegas

Tour de Arcade

In this super special, Mel the Office Gamer Girl talks about her trip to Las Vegas to find the best arcades that the town has to offer. She visits Circus Circus (adventure dome and big top), TA truck stop, Sega Gameworks, MGM Grand's arcade, Exalibur's "fun dungeon", Gemini, and Insert Coin(s) (a newly opened video game bar). Join us for this Tour de Arcade!

Vistas of Game Episode 10

Because you don't have time for a 'Let's Play'.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 29: Pure Hidden

Pure Hidden is much more than a hidden object game. It's a modern work of video game art.

Vistas of Game Episode 9

Mel the Office Gamer Girl presents Vistas of Game episode 9

Vistas of Game Episode 8

Mel the Office Gamer Girl presents Vistas of Game Episode 8.

Cheap App Games Aren't Killing the Gaming Industry

App Games may be GOOD for the industry

I recently read an article that claimed that app games, you know, those ones that you can download on your phones for fairly affordable prices, are causing harm to gaming industry. As if short, cheap, enjoyable games are going to cause great financial harm to and/or bring down the big boys of the gaming industry. My first thoughts on this were, Stop being so dramatic! It's not like you don't charge astronomical prices for your games anyhow. As far as gameplay is concerned, perhaps rather than be afraid of app games, the industry should learn a lesson from them. People like these games because they are inexpensive, short, and over all fun. If you didn't dump tons of money in sequels because it's the safe thing to do, or create another shooter/fighter/sandbox clone that's been done a bazillion times before, then maybe you would be less stressed about your financial situation.

One key thing that app games bring to the table is mass appeal. Most people can pick them up and play without worrying about controls that are too complicated, or about where the next save point is. The games also go to show that the game mechanics of yesteryear aren't dead. Sometimes simpler is better. This is something that the modern industry has forgotten throughout the years. We want something new, something exciting, something enjoyable, but this doesn't mean updated graphics and crazy controls. What games need how are fresh creative stories, and exciting new ideas. Think outside the box and grasp our imagination, don't assault it.

Which brings me to my final thought; Games that are cheap to make, make it possible for independent developers to share their ideas with the world. Apps, along with online gaming, are great venues for finding interesting new games and ideas that may not have otherwise been seen or had the massive media coverage as larger video game titles. It takes some time to sift through a lot of terrible games, but the good ones are there if you look hard enough.

In conclusion, the gaming industry should not be afraid of trends in app gaming but rather embrace it as an aid to bring us better games. Learn from it, and work with what you learn. Console gaming isn't dead, and it won't be for years to come so long as you adapt.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 28: Puzzle and Action

Puzzle and Action

This week Mel takes a look at Puzzle and Action Tanto and Ichidant for the Sega Genesis.

Video Games Live!

Video Games Live

Last night I went to Video Games Live! There's nothing quite like video game music performed live by a full orchestra. Here are some videos I took of the show!

Vistas of Game episode 7

Are you a bad enough dude to watch assorted video game clips?

Eat Sleep Game - Update

The current state of things

Hi there everyone! As you can see there is no new episode this week. As much as I really wanted to get it done, there were too many time restraints. Editing videos while creating other content and contributing to multiple sites can be very time consuming and since I don't get paid to do this, I must also have a job. I do have some exciting updates though!

Earlier this week I uploaded 4, yes 4, new episodes of Mel After Work, the series about mixing drinks. They can be found up there in the tab that says "Mel After Work". This week's free time has also been spent finishing up PhoenixGamer.com, a site geared at the growing gaming community in the area. There's also a forum where everyone is welcome to contribute so sign up if you want to talk to other gamers in the area or abroad. Lastly, I've been in contact with CADE, a local arcade and art gallery here in town. We've been talking about starting a video game trivia night hosted by yours truly. Not sure when it will start, but it will be on Friday nights, and you can check back for updates and other upcoming events at Phoenix Gamer. Along with video game trivia at CADE, I also hope to have some of my very own video game art displayed at the gallery as well. I have been doing some plastic pixel art and acrylic paintings that I'll share sometime soon.

Well, that's a lot to cover in one blog post, hope it wasn't too long for you. Don't worry about the series though, Mel the Office Gamer Girl is still going strong and should have a new episode up sometime next week. More vistas of game will be posted as well.

PS. I'm thinking about making a DVD. Not sure what it will contain though.
PPS. In case you didn't hear, I quit Space Monkey Mafia Studios. If you want me to contribute to your site send me a message via one of the many ways to contact me.

Video Games as art

Local Art Galleries Feature Video Game Art

Hey everyone check out this article that I did for our local gaming scene regarding video games and art in the area.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 27: The New Zealand Story / Kiwi Kraze

The New Zealand Story / Kiwi Kraze

In this episode Mel talks about the Kiwi Bird and a fun little game called The New Zealand Story.

Video Game Joke Contest

So you think you're funny?

New Contest!

Update:The deadline for this contest has been pushed to March 20th. That should be more than enough time, right? The prize is...a japanese snack food of some sort.

Hey everyone! This week's contest is to see who can come up with the best Video game themed joke! Come up with a joke or short funny story involving your favorite video game characters to win fabulous prizes! You can submit your entry by posting a comment here or sending me a message at my facebook. Either way, you're entered to win! Good luck everyone!

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 26: Miracle Girls

Mel the Office Gamer Girl Endings

Games should have endings

Too many games, not enough time. If you really love games then why the hell would you invest weeks, months, or even years in the same game? It's something that I just can't wrap my head around. I enjoy playing a game, beating it, and moving on to the next one. Not only do you get to experience the game in it's entirety, you get a sense of closure when you finish a game. Now I don't have a problem with MMOs or endless casual games, or the people that play them, but why spend so much time on the same game? Is it that the game is really that enjoyable as a whole, or are you just another victim of operant conditioning? In classic conditioning experiments done with animals, they got a treat, food, when they did whatever it was that they were trained to do. That's something tangible. When it comes to videogames, you get that little bit of joy when you beat a boss, find a so-called "rare" item, but that's not physical, it's all in your head. There's no real gain from spending so much time on a single game, that is unless you've figured out a way to sell accounts and not get caught. In that case, I would gladly pay you to tell me how you do it so I could do it too. Now I've played a couple of MMOS before, but I couldn't bring myself to play for more than a couple of hours in single week because I'm the type of person that needs variety. Sure there's downloadable content, different quests, and whatever else, but it still lacks the variety that you get with finishing and ending a game and moving on to the next one. Whatever your flavor of game, just remember that variety is the spice of life and everything is good and well if in moderation.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl Episode 25: Recca

One of the best shoot 'em ups for the famicom

Mel the Office Gamer Girl's Vistas of Game

Vistas of Game Episode 6

Mel the Office Gamer Girl Contest - Trivia Questions for this week

Here is where I'll be posting the trivia questions for this week. Check back everyday for updates!

UPDATE:CONGRATS TO THE WINNERS! Prizes will be sent out soon.
Question #1: In the game Out to Lunch on the SNES, how many countries do you visit?
Question #2: How many penguins are in the end credits for the KuruKuru Kururin episode?
Question #3: Captain Novolin is burdened with what disease?
Question #4: In the game Majyuuou, what is the name of Abel's buddy who kills him in the beginning?
Question #5: What are the names of the 4 playable ships in Biohazard Battle?
Question #6: DoReMi Fantasy is the better sequel to what shitty NES game?
Question #7: What are the 3 colors of liquid in Sutte Hakkun?
Question #8: What currency is used in Hamtaro HamHam Heartbreak?
Question #9:this is the last one! How many playable characters are there in Tetris Battle Gaiden(not including the dragon)?

Mel the Office Gamer Girl - This Week's Contests

Win Fabulous Prizes!

HEY EVERYONE! New Contest Details! We're doing 2 this time and one of them guarantees you at least a small prize. The deadline for both will be Friday, Feb 2nd. Here we go!

#1: Art Contest. Create a piece of art, any medium, that's related to the my series or any of the games that I've covered so far and receive a small prize. The best piece will receive the coveted Mr Fribbles figure (mini penguin mascot) along with some fantastic foreign snacks. (entries should be submitted via my facebook page

#2: Trivia: Each day up until the deadline, I will post a new trivia here, so check back for updates. Each question will be related to one of the games that I've covered. To submit an answer, send me a message via facebook with the answer. The person who answers first will get 5 points, everyone after will receive 1 point less. The person with the most points in the end will get an awesome prize pack of goodies.

Good luck everyone! :D

Mel the Office Gamer Girl Episode 24: Majyuuou

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 24:Majyuuou

An awesomely unique action platformer for the Super Famicom.

Vistas of Game episode 5

Vistas of Game episode 5

More Games, more vistas.

Gaming: Winning and losing don't matter at all

Don't be a pissy Mcfuckface just because you lost a game. If winning a game is all that you care about, especially in the competitive sense, then you're probably playing games for all the wrong reasons. Video games are an awesome way to escape the mundane every day routine for sure, but sometimes it becomes more than that. Not for myself, but I've seen others become so wrapped up in the competitive side of gaming that it makes me wonder why they play games at all. While it is fun to see an awesome game tournament, a good match, a nice move, it amazes me that small-time online folk have a sense of pride when it comes to winning online and/or in competitive gaming. No, seriously, what the hell? What happened to playing games for fun? How about playing games for a story? An adventure? I think that these people need to get over whatever stick they have up their ass and realize that it's just a game. One shouldn't place their sense of self on a video game. Don't get me wrong, I love video games, but not to the point that I'm going to question myself if I lose a match. That's just plain stupid. Now, I love multiplayer games and I love playing games with friends when I have the time. Fortunately for me, my friends and I are at about the same level of awesomeness at the games that we play, so there's a nice balance of winning and losing involved, but in the end that doesn't matter at all. Even if someone was better than the next, we don't play competitive games for those reasons. We play games for fun, for a laugh, and for enjoyment. Never once do we give a crap about who wins and who loses. It's all about the overall experience.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 23: Rampart

Mel the office gamer girl episode 23: Rampart

Mel the gamer girl Q&A #1

Here are some questions that were submitted by some awesome people that follow me around on facebook.

What got you into gaming?

Friends, time, boredom, I couldn't really say what for certain. I've been playing video games for as far back as I can remember. I was born around a time when there was a revolution in gaming I think. I got to see the transition of 8-bit to 16-bit and so on. In gaming a lot happened in such a seemingly short amount of time. To see so much change, and how awesome games can be, not to mention the variety (there's something for everyone), really kept things fresh and interesting for me. I think that gaming has really come a long way and it's still moving forward, even if a bit slow. I can't wait to see where it goes from here. So long as there's games, I'll play 'em.

worst games you ever played?

Too good of a question to pass up even though it's been asked time and time again. It seems that for every 10 shitty games, there is 1 good game, sometimes it's a great game. But there are indeed, quite a few really shitty games. I don't even know where to start. So I'll just go over the ones that come to me first. #1 has to be Penguin wars for the original gameboy. I discussed this game in the very first episode of Mel the Office Gamer Girl. You choose a character and toss a ball around. That's it. The graphics are terrible and music loops over and over and over again with loud screeching noises after every round. It's really bad, I wouldn't recommend it, nor would I recommend any of the other games in this article. The next couple of games that suck are on the NES. When someone mentions terrible NES games the first 2 that come to mind are chubby cherub and Athena. Both of these games suck, like really really suck. They suck so much that I'm not even going to bother putting it into words. If you've played these games before, I'm sorry. If you haven't, don't. Let's see, there's Where's Mario, but that one's been beaten to death. I'm so flustered at the very thought of these games that the rest of this article is going to have to wait for another time after I regain composure from this undesired fit of rage.

What do you think about the Zelda timeline?

It gives me a headache. There's too much going on there. What I want to know is how did all the minor characters become so popular? Also, why doesn't Zelda have her own game? I mean, where you can play as Zelda? (smash bros. Doesn't count) Princess peach has her own game...

Cell shading vs. Polygons?

Oh my how I love cell shading. I think that they could make a shitty new game that was cell shaded and I would still play it just for the visual bliss I experience when seeing those solid lines and smooth colors. But it's not something that should be over used. If every game looked like that then it would no longer be special. Not to me anyways. Entirely cell shaded games are few and far between and I hope that it stays that way because it's a very special style and should be reserved for special games.

Thanks everyone!

Thanks to everyone who sent in questions last week, or the week before, or whatever. Keep sending them in! I will try to answer your question in my next Q&A.
Thanks for reading, thanks for watching!

Vistas of Game episode 4

Vistas of Game episode 4

1 Mel, 3 shows

Mel the Office Gamer Girl's 3 shows

I wanted to take the time to explain the 3 video series that I do for those who haven't seen any of my videos yet or for those that have but would like to know a little bit more.
Mel the Office Gamer Girl is the main series. It's kind of part educational, part review. I discuss obscure video games, how to play them, and whether I think they're worth taking a look at or not. I don't take a lot of time to write the scripts, but it's a tedious and long process playing all the games and editing all of the gameplay and audio. In the end what I end up with is a video that can be anywhere between 2 minutes, to 10 minutes depending on how many games are covered in a single episode.
I don't stick to a particular console or genre of game, I try to go over a variety of games. I feel that these games are under-appreciated and encourage people to check them out for themselves.
The second series is Vistas of Game. It came about when I didn't have the time to do a full episode of Mel the office gamer girl every week anymore but I still wanted to release content. Its a simple series with a simple format. Straight up gameplay. It's like if you were to combine a “let's play” video with Cinematech but the clips are from retro games and it's got adhd. Something like that. Short clips from various games across all systems just mashed all together for your enjoyment. It's also something cool to play in the background at a party.
Mel After Work is the new series I've been working on. Along with my regular office job, I'm a certified bartender. I didn't want my skills to rust so this is a show about mixing delicious drinks. It has absolutely nothing to do with video games, that is, until I start mixing video game themed drinks. Well, nothing goes better with gaming than a fine beverage. So mix yourself a drink watching this show, then enjoy your drink while watching my other videos. The first episode of Mel After Work will be released sometime later and will be exclusive to Space Monkey Mafia Studios.

Mel the Office Gamer Girl episode 22: Sandra no Daiboken: Valkyrie to no Deai