If you have been listening to 321GoCast for a while, you know that the cast plays this little game called League of Legends. And no we wont stop talking about it. For those of you unaware League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game inspired by the Defense of the Ancients (DotA) map for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne developed and published by Riot Games. Riot Games was formed by the two guys responsible for the DoTA Allstars version of DoTA. Here is a pretty good explanation of gameplay basiscs.


There are 72 Champions as of March 22, 2011



Okay now that that intro is done, lets get down to business. League of Legends has 72 champions as of this moment, each with their abilities, draw backs and strategies. But you can easily put them into basic categories, Tanks, Damagers, Assassins, Mages, Brawlers, etc. The categories are self explanatory I think so I wont go too in depth in to them. Damagers basically melt people's faces off quickly with heavy amounts of attack damage, Mages do the same with heavy amounts of magic damage, Assassins kill people quickly, Brawlers are champions who do consistent damage and have the survivability to stay in fights longer than most other champions. This brings me to Tanks, the whole reason I'm writing this cblog.



In many online games there exists the Tank class, MMOs have the clearer definition of tanks since when someone chooses the warrior class for that game they can usually do one of two things, tank or do damage. Other games like Monday Night Combat include a class specifically called the Tank, he serves a similar purpose to the more straightforward MMO style tank, but he can also deal a lot of damage. Even single player games have tanks, in most RPGs there is always that one character that people designate as the one that will take more damage that will survive regardless of whats thrown at them, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy, Super Mario RPG, etc. Also you know Dungeons and Dragons and the pen and paper stuff have tanks, but that was a given really.



So what is Tanking? Tanking is the practice in games where a character or a player is designated as the lovingly nicknamed "meat-shield" because, well they take as much damage as possible so you don't have to. Tanks in most games are easy to spot, lots of armor, beefy looking, carries a shield, etc. But in League of Legends tanks come in a few surprising packages, not everyone who carries a shield is a tank. According to RIOT games in a recent panel at PAX East, their design philosophy focuses on players being able to identify what champions do, more or less, by just looking at them. Unfortunately this sometimes doesnt happen.



This is Shen, The Eye of Twilight, my personal favorite champion and my main. Shen is a ninja of the Kinkou Order based in the city-state of Ionia, not going into too much of the lore here though so lets move on. Now when you look at Shen, what is your first reaction, what is your gut feeling tell you about what he does? (Maybe answer this question in your comments?) Like any normal gamer, you'd look at Shen and go "Ninja, light looking armor, hes probably pretty quick and can go stealth and kill people pretty fast." Right? WRONG. Shen, is a tank. His designated role is that of the damage taker, the "meat-shield", the one who dies so everyone else can live, etc. I play Shen, because tanking is a simpler art than that of an assassin or a mage, but I also play Shen because late game, tanking an entire team or a tower and basically shrugging it off like it was nothing, is quite a fulfilling experience. (Here is a helpful link to all of Shen's abilities as they will be referenced in the next part of this cblog. )

However in my "travels" through League of Legends and my interactions with its players, I feel as though people, who may or may not play Tanks on occasion, forget what tanking is all about. Here is a scenario I run across a lot: My team is advancing on one of the enemy team's towers, I lead the way while letting the tower damage our minions first before I start attempting to tank it. The enemy team notices and converges on us, we take one or two down but on this occasion we have more casualties than them, I am taking tower damage and one of the enemy champions is still at a pretty high amount of health. I begin to back off, but my other teammate (bot a tank, probably playing a carry or an assassin) decides that they want that kill. Now this causes a conundrum for me, I can back off and survive and wait for our team to be up to full strength or attempt to help my teammate attempt to get a kill, while still taking tower damage. 1)I decide to help. 2)I don't. Say I take option 1 we can either come out of this with a kill we weren't expecting and then return to base to regroup or we can get decimated by our target, the tower, and the remaining member of the enemy team giving them free reign to push a lane with out worry of retaliation from us for however long it takes the members of my team to re-spawn. Option 2 seems like the safer bet because if my teammate follows my lead and backs off, we can live, and make sure that the enemy team cant freely roll up on a lane and push it to their hearts content. However taking this option can lead to my teammate getting killed, or getting annoyed at me for not helping them try and get a kill. I run into this scenario more often than not and since I am a logical person and can read a battle fairly well I will usually opt to have us survive rather than chase a kill that might not work out. This gets a couple of people mad, but over all the rest of the team gets it.

Another scenario, and the most frustrating scenario that I run in to as a Shen player is when I use his ultimate, Stand United. Sometimes this ultimate is used to help in a team fight, but more often than not it is used to help a teammate who for X reason is taking a lot of damage and in danger of dying. Now Me at full or a good amount of health, Shield said ally and teleport to their location as per what Stand United does, upon arrival I quickly see which enemy is dealing the most damage to my ally and is the bigger threat to their life and immediately Shadow Dash into that enemy. I have Shadow Dashed into this enemy so my ally can have a few seconds of reprieve from their damage and possibly get away clean and continue to live. Sometimes this goes off without a hitch and we both live, or if I have to die that's fine by me. More often than not however many allies, especially those playing assassins or mages, decide that me Shadow Dashing the enemy was an indication to them that they could turn right back around and kill whatever was only a few seconds earlier completely destroying them. Why would they think that? I am always perplexed as to why someone who until recently was getting completely rocked and needed me to save them would turn right around and basically give the enemy the kill they were looking for. Shadow Dash taunts the enemy for a certain amount of time and if the enemy has any idea what they are doing they will ignore the tank after the taunt is completed and go right back to trying to kill what they were previously trying to kill. So in this scenario, unfortunately what happens a lot of the time is what I just described, I port onto my already fleeing ally, saving them, dash at the enemy and then my ally decides to give it another go, getting themselves killed in the process. This infuriates me to no end and also usually leads to my teammate going "WTF Shen?" as if I had a magical answer as to why they could get a kill.

Example of a Carry character

Tanking is a fulfilling experience, but it can also be quite annoying. So here are some quick tips for those of you who want to try out tanking. 1) Be patient with your allies. 2)In game like LoL or HoN build accordingly to what your team needs to survive the enemy team. 3)Use your skills wisely. 4) Leave overly aggressive players to die (Cruel, I know, but they need to learn their lesson) and 5) Have fun with it. If you aren't having fun tanking, then maybe you should try something else... or your team are feeders and there is really not much you can do about that. It takes patience and a willingness to let things slide to tank, it takes good battle awareness and situational awareness to do your job correctly. (map awareness doesn't hurt either) Tanking is a Zen art, where you must put your feeling aside and try your best to protect your team, while possibly having to sacrifice yourself a few times. Because to me, though you, the tank, are important to the team you are not more important than anyone else. If you are at half health and your team asks you to tank you never go "I cant, I'm at half gotta go heal." You man up and you tank, you do your job. If you must die so that your team can prevail over whatever you are facing then so be it. A tank doesn't need to get kills, a tank doesn't need to build offensive items, a tank needs only defensive items that both keep you alive and help your team. It is a waste to see a tank pick up offensive minded items. To the tank there can be no greater pleasure than to see the enemy team fall because they were dumb enough to focus you first.

Finally here are some tips for those of you NOT playing tanks. 1) Be cautious. Just because you have a tank anywhere near you , doesn't mean YOU are invincible. 2).... Actually come to think of it that is really my only tip. Seriously carries, squishies, those of you who can get easily destroyed if cornered, I understand your need to get a kill but if its going to cost you your life after you were saved by the tank or anyone else on our team for that matter, I implore you to think about it first. Do not under any circumstance take your tank for granted. He/she will not always be there, and they are not some sort of magical being that can survive everything thrown at them, or that can somehow turn the tide of an already losing battle. A tank will jump into a losing fight, not to try and win it, but to save his allies from death.

Now did someone call a Doctor?


This has been In a Viral Minute #9. Thanks for reading. Oh and go play League of Legends, its awesome.

Its been five years for Neiro and Destructoid, the staff has grown and gone through changes, and so has the community. In the past five years we have seen people come and go, we have formed friendships, bonds, and for some even found love (I'm looking at you Stella and Mikey). Each of us has our own personal story to tell when it comes to how Destructoid, and its community, has changed our lives. Here is mine.

I had been lurking Destructoid for about a year before I met Bob "Necros" Muir during my second year of college. He encouraged me to write up CBlogs, chat in IRC, and get on the forums. I was reluctant at first, because of school work, and my self deprecation "Who the fuck wants to read what I have to say?" I thought to my self, "My opinions wont matter" etc. But I got the courage to do so and wrote a few cblogs and started chatting on irc. At the time I was known as RHWeeeeee6 on DTOID, a relative unknown, avid FailCast listener, and still kind of a lurkrer, though id did get a shout out during Bob's 3rd year anniversary video. Around that time I became tired of my handle and decided that I needed a fresh start on the internet, JohnnyViral was born. My new handle, my new name, my new identity of sorts. I hadnt changed, but something about the new handle felt right, felt like it would stay with me for a long time. I re-introduced myself to DTOID during the 10 things you dont know about me cblog deal. After this I got into the forums a bit, got in to IRC and started a bit of a cblog series where I recapped the latest episode of Red vs Blue.

A month or so after this I started my first Dungeons and Dragons game with Analoge, Ryu89, Crocbox, King3vbo and Cataract. We started it from a chat we had on irc and we each thought it was a cool idea so we did it. After a bunch of games Croc came up with the idea to record a podcast, because to us our weekly banter during our DnD games was funny enough to share with the rest of you. 321GoCast was born, knowing fully that we were basically a FailCast spinoff by naming ourselves something that Hito would always say to speed up the recording when things started to take too long.We decided that we didnt need a format, that we would basically not feature anything about the community and not actively seek guests (that aspect fell apart pretty quickly). The podcast about nothing became a reality and to this day is still running with 38 released episodes, a charity event and official pins given out at PAX East 2010.



Speaking of PAX East 2010, skipping most of the year because it was kind of uninteresting, suffice to say I met awesome people, like Kauza by winning a cblog contest he posted up and like Stella Wong.But PAX East 2010 was the experience that brought it all to fruition for me. Though most of the people who were there and had been at Prime before were telling me stories about how much better Prime was and all that. But to me, it was my first PAX and I finally met so many of the people that I considered my friends on DTOID, plus after a month or so of Cataract telling me how awesome THe Protomen were, I saw them live, and they blew my mind. I saw and met MCFrontalot, and Anamanaguchi. Cataract, Analoge, Bunnie, Hamza, Sammit, Nelson, Chewie, Dyganth (though I didnt know him yet, and forgot i met him), Danl (same deal for him), Powerglove, ScottyG, Mr. Ponce, Funktastic, Kauza and tons of others. Hanging out with them at that small UNO's, drinking, eating, talking, laughing, was an experience that I wont ever forget and would not change for anything. And from all the stories that I heard about PAX Prime I promised everyone that I would go.



Months went by, 321GoCast kept going, our first DnD game died, and we tried to revive it, which didnt work. 321GoCast did GLee cast, we had Grimm on, Kauza on, Sean Carey on, and more amazing guests. I was on AnimuCast, I had a "successful" podcast and I had a pretty big number of people who knew and cared about who I was. PAX Prime was couldnt come fast enough.



PAX PRIME, oh man, I already said a lot about this in a previous CBlog, but it is still worth mention. Prime was amazing, it was... I cant even describe how I felt before, during and after, it was such an unbelieveable experience. Getting to wear the Mr. Destructoid helmet, was a great experience though it became nerve wracking during Saturday night, but getting to strut around the con center was such a fun experience, I would definitely do it again. Meeting so many DTOID people, Tactix, Stella, Mikey, King3vbo, Pangloss, BleachBoy, Ali D, Icarus, John Solgrim, Sean and his wife, Zodiac and her husband, Maya and her lobsters, Diverse, Hollie, Pew, Crocbox, Zen Albatross, Neiro and countless others. The Chapel Bar, Game Works, and The Rock Bottom, were amazing after con places to hang out with these people. All of those after hours experiences though were nothing in comparison to when I went up to the mic, said my name and a very loud cheer went through the crowd. A cheer, for me, from all these people who until recently were strangers and didn't even know what I looked like? It was fucking beautiful, and I was touched, I had to try and not tear up. I wanted to go up to each person who cheered and give them a hug, and thank them for it. Anyway, before I start making this into an even bigger love fest I will move on to why I wrote this cblog.



During the past year, after PAX Prime, my life spiraled out of control. My life here on DTOID was amazing, but my life outside of DTOID was shit. I was doing terribly in my college classes, I was in a sort of depression and a vicious circle of self loathing and self deprecation, which came to a head one night in November, where I broke down and just let all the sadness out. During that night and the previous nights I had been hinting through my twitter that I was not feeling so hot, and Stella came to my aid, she listened to me rant, listened to my problems and gave me some good advice, because of Stella I got my act together and after a month of working on it I came back stronger and better, and back to the JohnnyViral that you all know and love. And I cant thank Stella enough for that.

And now a few days after PAX East 2011 I write this Cblog because its the 5th anniversary of a site that has made my life so much better since the day I joined it. I have met so many friends, so many people that I care about and that care for me. Destructoid has brought me friends, people to game with, a form of success that I has not had before, and a recognition that I so craved a long time ago. It has even helped me plan out what I am going to do after my college life ends (get ready Portland, JohnnyV is coming). Destructoid is one of the best, if not the best thing that has happened to me in the last couple of years of my life, as I said before, I may be the angriest person on the planet but whenever Im around the DTOID community, the anger subsides and I can let myself be happy. And for that I thank you guys, Neiro, and the staff. Thank you so much.


See all these fuckers up there. I love every single one of them.

So me and my friends have been throwing parties at their apartment for a few years now and recently we have been making them into theme parties. Our last party was a meme party, where we played tons of meme songs, and people dressed as memes (I dressed up as Prancing Cera.) So for our next upcoming party, one of our friends suggested we make it a Masquerade party. Knowing this I was wracking my brain with what I should do for a mask. Should I just get a regular mask and forget the whole deal or should I customize a mask and make it awesome? After a few minutes of deliberation I decided that I would get a mask and make it into the most awesome mask ever. I decided to create a Mr. Detructoid masquerade mask.

Step 1: I thought of buying a green mask and painting it, but all the green masks I found were too shiny for my taste. So I bought a generic black mask and painted it with green acrylic.


Step 2: Using the Mr. Destructoid Bobblehead on my desk as a model, painted the T shape that represents his eyebrows and nose. I wore the mask and my friend Sarah painted and trace the lines so that the T was centered.

Eyebrows


And Nose


Step 3: Next I counted the dots on the T and realized that I needed to resize the eyebrows or I would have too many dots.


Step 4: After painting over the excess gray and using a detail brush to make the illusion of the mask having the dots, I painted red around the eye holes.


Step 5/Final: Here is the final look of the mask. And in order to complete the look I will be putting the mask on and then painting over the exposed skin around my eyes with red to make the circles look complete.


So there you have it y'all, my Mr. Destructoid masquerade mask. Hope you liked it. A ton of thanks to my friend Sarah for lending me her paint and helping me out with the detail work.

(Welcome to another edition of In a Viral Minute. I will keep this short since this blog is pretty damn long. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment. And jus as a service to you An open love letter to DTOID and the community)

So PAX, yeah I know I’m super fuck ridiculous late, but I’ve been busy and have had no time to sit down and write up my thoughts from PAX. I don’t think I want to talk too much about what I did since I already talked about it during episode 25 of 321GoCast, which you should go listen to, so again I’m just going to talk about my impressions of the con and getting to finally hangout with the DTOID community proper.



This was my first PAX Prime and I can’t begin to describe how awesome it felt to walk up the street and meet up with King3vbo, Pangloss, and Analoge. I’ve been chatting them up for almost a year now and have become good friends with them so meeting them in person, though I’ve already met Analoge before, was amazing.  PAX was such an am (Welcome to another edition of In a Viral Minute. I will keep this short since this blog is pretty damn long. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment. And jus as a service to you Tl:DR version: An open love letter to DTOID and the community) So PAX, yeah I know I’m super fuck ridiculous late, but I’ve been busy and have had no time to sit down and write up my thoughts from PAX. I don’t think I want to talk too much about what I did since I already talked about it during episode 25 of 321GoCast, which you should go listen to, so again I’m just going to talk about my impressions of the con and getting to finally hangout with the DTOID community proper. This was my first PAX Prime and I can’t begin to describe how awesome it felt to walk up the street and meet up with King3vbo, Pangloss, and Analoge. I’ve been chatting them up for almost a year now and have become good friends with them so meeting them in person, though I’ve already met Analoge before, was amazing.  PAX was such an amazing experience, I had so much fun at panels, at the concerts and at the post con hang outs, that the pictures themselves I think may not even begin to come close to showing you how much fun I had. Wearing the Mr. Destructoid helmet on Saturday and helping with that was an amazing and fulfilling experience that I recommend everyone have,  just wearing it (though it does break your neck after a while) makes you feel like you are the most awesome thing walking the show floor. I was blessed to afford my way to PAX, I was truly blessed to have gone during a year where I was confident I didn’t have to introduce myself to too many people and that I would feel right at home with you all. This community has got to be the best thing that has ever happened to the internet, and I hope we continue to be here for a long long time. I love you guys. What I felt while at PAX, I can’t say what it was, I just know I can describe it. I’m a relative newcomer to the DTOID Community “spotlight” (I guess you could call it that), and even with that I feel as though it’s just a small niche of people who know who I am, care about what I say, and consider me a guy they want to speak to. To me I am just one guy surrounded by hundreds of even more awesome people, but during my time at PAX, I felt like I was important, not more important than anyone else mind you, but none the less I felt that I had a duty, I mattered. Helping with the Helmet, running around with the 321GoCast crew and guests, giving out the Mystery Swag, watching K-On for other people’s amusement, standing in line for Friday’s concerts, all those things made me feel like I affected how good someone’s PAX experience was, and that gave me purpose and made my PAX amazing. The same feeling came to me through the entire weekend meeting tons of awesome DTOID people, so here are the shout outs. Mikey: You are awesome dude. Thanks for letting me be so familiar with you even though you just met me a day before. You keep doing what you do, maybe put us in the comic? (No, don’t. Really don’t.) You are crazy awesome! Stella: Thank you so much for my puresento, its amazing. Also, you are the best ever! Thanks for supporting my endeavors and being so damn nice. When I come visit in the spring Ill be sure to get you a puresento as well. And remember that K-On was a onetime only deal. Powerglove: POWERGLOVE YEAH!!!!!! Thanks for all the help during Saturday, guiding me through the Con floor, even though we only got to do it for a very small amount of time. (Jesus Christ I met so many people.) Zodiac Eclipse (and her husband by proxy): Lovely to have met you and your husband. I think it’s awesome that you let us call you mother. I promise I’ll be on the forums more often. Crocbox: Croc croc croc. What can I say, you somehow managed to avoid me for the entirety of Friday. Glad we finally met; hope to get back into some DnD man. Erryday we spinninin’ Pangloss: Seriously, guys, wings on my back legs. Best room ever, we should do it again some time. Had tons of fun with you man. King3vbo: I love you king. You are ridiculous, hilarious, and snore like a truck, but it was a fun weekend thanks in large part to you and our hotel room. Sorry I didn’t drink that much of the jack daniels you brought me. But I hope watching me watch K-On was as great of an experience as you thought it would be. Scion of Mogo: Dude, youre great. Drinking with you was amazing and walking around with you as Mr. DTOID was even cooler. We strutted through that can center like we owned the place. Do that Strut! Hollie: It was such a pleasure to meet you, you are so nice. Thank you for letting me geek out about Gears with you for a bit. And thank you, for trusting me enough with the Mr. DTOID helmet on Saturday night. Hope to play some Gears 3 with you at some point. Dibs on Dom.     Hamza: SHARK! As always man, a pleasure, and a privilege to hang out with you. Hope I didn’t bother ya too much. See you next year, or whenever I visit DTOID HQ. Maya: Ah Maya what can I say that hasn’t already been said. You are quite the awesome girl; though I regret giving you my name tag (I miss it so). Hope your lobster sons are having the time of their lives, and I hope to see you again next PAX. Jim Sterling: I have only come to say that I no longer think you are a fat prick. As a person, you are great. I take back all the nasty things I said about you, even though they are forever on audio record. John Solgrim: JOHN! I love you dude! Maybe next time I’ll get super drunk too and then we can make out. Anyway, loved to finally meet you and had a great time just chatting and watching you be you. Zen: Great to see you again man, loved your CD, thanks for signing it. Can’t wait to see you play live again. CHPTUNES!!!!! Analoge: You cool dawg you cool. Glad to have shared a room with you for a second time buddy. I told you The Protomen were awesome. LIGHT UP THE NIGHT! Tactix: Oh my god Tactix. I had no idea how awesome you were in person, now I know why people just absolutely love you. Dude thanks for the experience, thanks for the love, kind of thank you for Showgirls. Love you buddy. See you in the spring (cross your fingers. Get ready for VIRAL CON) Chad: AMAZING! Happy to have met you, was taken aback by the amount of AMAZING you exude. If it wasn’t for you I don’t think watching the second half of Showgirls would have been tolerable. Bleachboy: Buddy, guy, friend, you were great. Oh Hai guys! Your impression was spot on and hanging out with you was a highlight most every day. I promised you I would get you in to the Chapel and I delivered didn’t I? See you again soon man. Scotty: Oh Scotty, you so cool. Literally still the nicest person ever, no matter what some douche bag with a Delorian says. Always great to see you, always fun to talk to ya. Hopefully this won’t be the last time I go to PAX so we can see each other again. Pleasure as always man. EarthbounderNess: Though I only saw you once during PAX it was an absolute pleasure to meet and speak with you. I still cant believe we spent 30+ minutes discussing League of Legends and cosplay. Great to have met you man. Scion of Mogo: We strutted, we drank, we laughed. It was amazing. You are the coolest guy ever man. Just keep on strutting. Do that sturt, do that strut, Do that Mr. DTOID Strut And to the rest of all you lovely bastards (I met way too many of you to count): As I said during the panel, I love you guys. I may be the angriest person on the planet, but the DTOID community and the awesomeness that we exude soothes the anger and brings out the best in me. Thank you all. And last but not certainly not least,  Niero: You are the man. I can’t tell you enough how much Destructoid means to me. To have a place where even my angry rants about almost nothing could even be considered worthy of being read or listened to, is a god send. To have a community of people who regardless of my views still want to play games with me and discuss them with me is by far the most amazing thing that has happened to me in a long time. And to somehow have that community know me, and appreciate my contributions to it, is an amazing feeling. Also I really hope I kept the helmet safe, it was a really nerve racking task, thanks for trusting me with it. For that I thank you from the bottom of my very angry heart. Thank you so much for this site, thank you for the drinks, and thank you for the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.

And just as 321GoCast has returned so has In a Viral Minute. Aren’t you excited?

This time on IaVM I will be discussing a whole bunch of things, a month’s worth of things actually since I have been away from IaVM for such a long time. So let’s jump right back into this bitch. I’ll be talking about PAX in another blog that should be coming up in the new few days or so. This IaVM also contains a poll kind of deal concerning a 321GoCast Extra Life event.

I played Dead Rising Case 0 a while back and I got to say that I love this game. Chuck Greene is awesome, in my opinion he has even surpassed Frank West as the most amazing person to have around during the zombie apocalypse. Duct taping the shit out of everything he can find, doesn’t afraid of anything, he’s a pretty cool guy. Trying to save his daughter, keep her away from the military, saving as many as he can. The controls are smoother from the original, weapons last longer I think, and they are easier to use. Speaking of weapons, the combo weapons are god damn amazing and hilarious at the same time, some of them are pretty self explanatory like the nail bat, but others like the drill bucket, or the IED took a while to figure out. It was a fun experience and I can’t wait to get my hands on the real thing.

REACH, its out, fun, DAMN YOU HAMZA! I honestly hadn’t really been too hyped about it, I wasn’t even going to buy it until I watched the commercials and read Hamza’s review. When the multiplayer beta was active I did play a little and was impressed, I liked some of the modes and had a ton of fun during some games. I had some gripes with it and some of its maps, but all in all I had fun with it. Even so I was not planning on buying it anytime near launch; at most I was going to purchase it later in the year. Then I read Hamza’s review (and yes I know that Hamza loves Halo sexually), and the way he described it and his outright recommendation for it, that I had no choice but to get it. And I’m happy to say that I do not regret it, I love the story, love the armor customization, this is also the very first time in a Halo game that I prefer to use the single shot weapons (such as the DMR and Needle Rifle) rather than using the automatic weapons. Multiplayer is fun and not completely ridiculous, though a few maps (Like sword base) give way to a metric ton of camping, which in turns just makes the game go slow and get really annoying. A mode I have been having tons of fun with is the online version of Firefight, the modes re really fun and I’ve been playing it almost non-stop. All in all I have enjoyed my experience with Halo: REACH and will be playing it for a while.

3DS. Jesus Christ all that news, all those games, I am so excited for so many of those games, I was sold during the E3 press conference, but now, dear lord do I REALLY RELLAY want one. It has so many good titles coming out for it, but one in particular caught my attention and has me completely sold on the system. And if you know anything about me at all you should have already guessed what game I’m talking about. MegaMan Legends 3, let me repeat that MEGA MAN LEGENDS 3! Oh my god, I have been waiting for this game since the last time I replayed MegaMan Legends 2, I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the Legends series and have wanted a new Legends for so long that I had almost given up on Capcom ever making it. When Ryu gave me the link the other day I literally died of happiness. I haven’t been that happy in a while (PAX doesn’t count) and just the mention of Capcom working on Legends 3 was enough to cause my day to become even better. I honestly don’t care how long it takes to come out, just as long as I have that game in my hands and in my 3DS. I seriously can’t fucking wait.

Finally if you follow the 321Gocast Twitter feed, you may have seen this tweet a few days ago.

321gocast
Would you donate to Extra Life in exchange for Johnny having to watch K-On?

So would you? As most of you know I hate K-On, HATE it with the burning passion of a thousand suns. But I have come up with a fun way for everyone, but me of course, to support Extra Life. Im not sure about the details yet, but if enough people want me to do it I will. So that’s where you come in community. Should I do it? How much would you think per episode watched would you donate? And would you watch a stream of me raging at K-On?

Like I said I’ll be posting up something about PAX later, but if you want a more in depth retelling of my PAX experience then you should go listen to episode 25 of 321GoCast. Well I think that’s all for this newest IaVM. Thanks for reading, thanks for supporting me and my endeavors. If you ever want to help with IaVM in any way please feel free to contact me. And so this has been In a Viral Minute, I’m JohnnyViral and Zodiac Eclipse wants me to tell you to go visit the forums, we has them.

P.S. Here a picture of what the 321GoCast PAX Mystery Swag was.

And Welcome back to another edition of In a Viral Minute. I’m JohnnyViral, and I hate you on the internet. As of the writing of this blog there are 2 and ½ weeks left until PAX Prime. This means that the PAX hype should reach an all time high in about a week or so.

First off this time around is a quick update on the Mystery Swag. Two pieces have already been claimed. Kauza has received his in the mail since he unfortunately can’t be at PAX Prime this year, and Bleachboy won the 321GoCast contest and guessed correctly what the Mystery Swag was. Both of these awesome gentlemen have signed an impromptu NDA which will be up as soon as PAX Weekend starts. So no spoilers of what the Mystery Swag is until you see it at PAX.
Second on this latest IaVM comes Monday Night Combat. For those of you who don’t know what Monday Night Combat is, all two of you, it is an Xbox Live Arcade over the shoulder shooter from Uber Entertainment. The game is a mix of TF2 and DotA/League of Legends/Heroes of Newerth. With three modes, two of which are online multiplayer. The modes are Blitz (offline, local multiplayer), Online Blitz (Players vs. Bots), and Crossfire (Team vs. Team). Crossfire is the one played by most of the DTOID crew I’ve been playing with during the last few days, and its very fun. The classes range from the Tank to the Assassin (fuck that whore), and they are unique and have signature moves, strengths and weaknesses. The games is pretty balanced, but has its flaws like any other game out there. The biggest problem that can be had with it, is playing with randoms in multiplayer, I recommend always playing with as many people that you know as you can, so that you can have a fun and coordinated team. So far I have played with TDiddy, Kauza, PowerGlove, Analoge, Ryu, King3vbo and a few others that slip my mind at the time. We pretty much steam roll about 90% of the time, but it’s never the same thing over and over again, which keeps the game fresh and makes it easy to play it for hours on end. One word of warning though if you see Kauza and I come down your lane, be prepared for The DOUBLE TEAM.

Thirdly the 300 pound gorilla in the room… Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I make no secret that I am a huge huge fan of the books and a pretty big fan of the story. It’s not the best literary work ever, but it’s a good representation, I think of the culture we eat, sleep and breath in every day we wake up and turn out our PCs, Macs and consoles. The music in the move was superb and prompted me to buy the OST as soon as I could, I even like the cheesy song about Ramona (You can’t see this but I’m currently singing along to the Ramona song as I write this.) Without spoiling things, I just want to say that even though a couple of things were missing and the ending was different, I thoroughly enjoyed the big screen portrayal of Scott Pilgrim and his world. 99% of the characters were spot on even in looks. The award for spot on looks goes to Stephen Stills, with Young Neil being a close runner up. All the fights were great looking and fun to watch. And even with all the Michael Cera hate going around, I personally have nothing against the guy and I think he did a damn good job playing Scott. Also the girl who plays Ramona is amazing, and the bed scene was great too. Suffice to say that I will be purchasing the DVD, especially if there is a special edition, and I cant wait for the game to come out for XBLA so I can enjoy the pixelated awesomeness.

Finally a bit more about PAX. The e-mailers are in full swing and awesome things have been planned, great tips have been discussed. If you are going to PAX I recommend you get in there, introduce yourself if we don’t know who you are and read up on the topics so you aren’t lost when you get to PAX. Before I go, I got a quick Mama Viral Update for y’all. Mama Viral, and some of the Viral family are a bit worried about my safety during PAX. But I’m not Necros, so the worst thing that will happen to me is being force to watch K-On! But to reassure her I showed her some of your lovely faces, namely those of my closet compatriots King3vbo, Analoge, Tactix and Stella. She seemed to relax a bit, but she’s still Mama Viral, and Mama Viral will always think of yours truly as her little baby boy, as I’m sure many of your mothers do as well. Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea for us to show Mama Viral how awesome the DTOID Community is. So if you see me around PAX, and want to give Mama Viral a shot out, I’ll film you real quick and show it to Mama Viral later on. (This is of course separate from what Stella and the 321Go Crew will do for her.)

Alright, thanks again for taking the time and reading the latest In a Viral Minute. I’m JohnnyViral and I’m here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff.