Since Rock Band 3 will be coming out soon I’ve been making the necessary switch from focusing most of my time on Street Fighter to now focusing on Green Day: Rock Band. I really enjoyed this version of Rock Band since I’ve been wanting to see Green Day songs in Rock Band since Rock Band 1.

Due to the popularity of my Beatles Rock Band post I wrote last year on the gold star cut offs I’ve decided to dedicate another post to Green Day Rock Band gold stars exclusively. Here you’ll find my pictures of the songs I’ve gold starred as well as videos if I can get them uploaded.

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have and if you have a request for a video that I haven’t yet posted please feel free to comment below and I’ll get to you as soon as I can! Thanks!

StarSlay3r- GD: Rock Band Song: “Basket Case” 100% Full Combo Gold Stars from Ciji Thornton on Vimeo.

StarSlay3r- GD: Rock Band Song: “Murder City” 100% Full Combo Gold Stars from Ciji Thornton on Vimeo.

StarSlay3r- GD: Rock Band Song: “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” 100% Full Combo Gold Stars from Ciji Thornton on Vimeo.

StarSlay3r- GD: Rock Band Song: “Burnout” 100% Full Combo Gold Stars from Ciji Thornton on Vimeo.

StarSlay3r- GD: Rock Band Song: “In The End” 100% Full Combo Gold Stars from Ciji Thornton on Vimeo.

Well I’m going to start this off with the statement that I’m not afraid to admit when I am wrong. I’m sure you all read my “say bye bye to guitar hero post”. Basically it looks like Activision actually listened to the people on this one and made the smartest move they could have ever done and they decided to bring Guitar Hero back to it’s roots. I believe that Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is going to help save Activision’s ass quite a bit after the failures known as Guitar Hero 5 and “Crap Hero”. Yeah, I said it. Basically just when you played Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80’s and Aerosmith and thought “well it can’t get much worse” they came out with GH5 and the pop hits aka Band Hero and totally turned me, along with 75% of the hardcore Guitar Hero crowd, off to the series.



One of my biggest complaints with the series was that ever since Guitar Hero 3 it seemed like they focused more on making the game mainstream by getting the big name pop stars like “Taylor Swift” instead of making the game challenging and fun. They also came up with the gimmicky slider bar for the GH World Tour and GH5 guitars which was a total flop as most people didn’t even use the touch bar since half the time it would malfunction causing it to go off on its own ruining your streak and became completely useless.



When it comes to Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock’s setlist it’s looking like they’re going back to the roots of GH1 and GH2 and bringing in some killer metal tracks and some awesome artists that are going to make for some decently hard and fun to play tracks. So far the following have been released:

AFI – Dancing Through Sunday
Anthrax – Indians
Avenged Sevenfold – Bat Country
Black Sabbath – Children of the Grave
Buzzcocks – What Do I Get?
Children of Bodom – If You Want Peace… Prepare for War
The Cure – Fascination Street
Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar on Me
Dethklok – Bloodlines
Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
DragonForce – Fury of the Storm
Drowning Pool – Bodies
Fall Out Boy – Dance, Dance
Foo Fighters – No Way Back
Foreigner – Feels Like The First Time
The Hive – Tick Tick Boom
Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing
Jethro Tull – Aqualung
Kiss – Love Gun
Linkin Park – Bleed It Out
Megadeth – Sudden Death
Metallica & Ozzy Osbourne – Paranoid (Live)
Muse – Uprising
My Chemical Romance – I’m Not Okay (I Promise)
Night Ranger – (You Can Still) Rock in America
Nine Inch Nails – Wish
The Offspring – Self Esteem
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
Rammstein – Waidmanns Heil
The Rolling Stones – Stray Cat Blues
Silversun Pickups – There’s No Secrets This Year
Slayer – Chemical Warfare
Tesla – Modern Day Cowboy
The Cure – Fascination Street
ZZ Top – Sharp Dressed Man



I had a chance to chat with Herman Li of Dragonforce about GH:WOR a while ago and since his band has a song in the game he was wondering what my thoughts were on the game. He wrote “So do you think people will still care about the next GH or Rock band games? It’s getting repetitive now and saturated no?”. Of course after seeing the other artists that are going to be on here and knowing that this is only PART of the list I’m extremely confident that this will be one of the best selling Guitar Hero titles to date and difficulty wise will probably sit at a level comparative to Metallica or Van Halen with the fun factor of Guitar Hero 2 mixed in. I don’t think Herman needs to worry about their song being in THIS version of GH at least. So far Dragonforce has been one of the selling points for Guitar Hero 3 and Smash Hits especially since they had a 3 track downloadable content pack for GH3 that everyone couldn’t get enough of.

On top of the new incredible setlist Activision, of course, felt the need to introduce two new guitars into the mix. I was surprised to see that the new guitars are lacking their slider bar since that seemed to be the new thing that they were all excited about. Gizmodo had a write up about the new guitars and revealed that they will have one cutaway section with all of the electronics inside of the fretboard and neck which means you can change out the bodies or even play without a body at all which is definitely an interesting new approach.



This new concept comes with positives AND negatives however.



Positives:
-The guitars have a more edgy “hardcore” look
-The guitars will be easier to customize
- The guitars will have less problems with buttons going out now that the body/ fretboard can’t disconnect. Often times disconnecting and reconnecting the pieces too much would cause pins to not connect properly and fret buttons would start to mess up or stop working entirely after a while.
-No touch strip means that the game most likely wont have insane unnecessary slider solos in the songs. Thank goodness!
-The fact that the guitar is all one piece means you can’t break it down for travel anymore which means you’ll now have to check your bag instead of tossing it in the overhead compartment on the plane.


Negatives:
-The guitars are too small which will make it awkward to play if you are a person who plays sitting down with the guitar resting in your lap
-The awkward shape will cause a problem similar to the explorers for 360 where the guitar would tilt if you’re a standing up type of player
-The start button looks like it is big and easy to hit which means that the possibility of accidentally pausing the game is greater.
-Where the hell is the XBL button supposed to be? Basically there’s not much room in the neck/fretboard area for a guide button and I have no idea where they’re going to place it. No matter where it goes it most likely will be in an easy to hit area which is VERY VERY bad!

Overall I’m pretty impressed with everything I’ve heard about Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock so far. The set list is looking solid, the new look for the characters is pretty damn awesome and I can only imagine the death metal overhaul that the venues got. So far I’m saying good job Activision. I’m so happy that you have proven me wrong because I was fearful that the game that I once loved so much was doomed to fall into the fiery pits of pop hell. Thank you for taking the route of your fans and going back to the good music that we all know and love and making the songs harder so that we can once again shred on our dusty guitars. On behalf of all of the hardcore Guitar Hero 1 and 2 fans out there… I thank you.

Hey everyone! Sorry about getting to this so late but I’ve been busy busting my ass the past couple days and everything is just now settling down for the night. Here’s some updates.


* As you saw on my twitter I gave you guys a hint about what I’ve been counting down to. YES, I will be doing a cross country road trip VERY SOON! More details about that will come later but it’s because of THIS that I won’t be heading to EVO. I have a very important tournament that will be happening at the same time as EVO and I’ve given that priority especially since I haven’t played SF4 or SSF4 since I got hired to do PR/Marketing work for Neverdie.


* I’ve been in talks with a couple different companies the past couple weeks and two companies just finalized everything with me yesterday and today. I now have 2 new sponsors! Sponsor #1 is the oh so yummy Gamer Grub! I’m told I have some PB & J packets being sent my way as of today and I’m excited to work with them! And yes… I WILL share my Gamer Grub with you. ^_^ Sponsor #2 is American Guru clothing so expect to see me sporting their gear at events in the future. One of the things I love about American Guru is they’ve been super supportive of the “up and coming” gamer offering to help out with a program. With their program gamers that help sell American Guru shirts can earn money that will go toward travel expenses for tournaments. It’s things like this that make me give American Guru clothing the up most respect and I’m honored to be working with them. An added bonus to working with American Guru… well they’re giving me my own line of shirts! I’ll be working with Bruce and his design team to come up with some kick ass gamer shirts with my own little dash of style so stay tuned to see what we come up with! I’ll also be shooting an endorsement video for them and for another sponsor very soon along with a photo shoot so you should see those up sometime in the next month or so if all goes according to plan.


* FiXT music is launching their magazine in the next month and I’ll be one of the featured interviews in their very first issue! For those wondering why a record label would be interviewing a video game player, it’s because of what I do outside of gaming. I have been doing a lot of work in the music industry for over 7 years now and FiXT is one of the 3 record labels that I do work for. Don’t expect this interview to be the typical “when did you get started with gaming, etc etc” interview because this IS NOT one of those kind of interviews. As I said… there’s a lot of work that I do aside from gaming that you guys don’t know about, but soon all of this will come to light… when the time is right. ^_^


* Last night my band PWN Stars won 1st place in the Rock Band 2 tournament. I was pretty excited because even though the vocalist I was supposed to have (Faye) was unable to show up, I did get 2 really great teammates that I’m actually going to compete in one more tournament with! Last night’s line up was me on Guitar, Sam aka Sammer_i on Bass, Brian aka Brubinow (from GYT) on Drums, and Flitz (formerly of G4) on Vox. We scored 1.4 million round 1, 1.6 million round 2 and 1.6 million round 3 in a score based competition setting the new record for high score at that venue. Unfortunately due to internet issues we were unable to pick from any DLC songs so we did the best that we could with the normal RB2 setlist. After competing together we decided to team up for the larger Rock Band tournament for $10,000. This Rock Band 2 tournament is a bit different however as the tournament rules state that only the band with the highest score from each specified venue gets to move on to the grand finals and at grand finals it turns into a score & showmanship tournament so I’m very excited for this. I have SO much fun at showmanship tournaments! Right now the score to beat is 1.8 million and we only get one shot… so hopefully we can pull it off!


* Some of you may have seen the tweet and some of you just may have noticed on your own but I’ve added a new gallery feature to my site. I’m attempting to add more pictures from events while keeping everything organized and this gallery makes things a million times better looking than just adding a million little thumbnails to each blog. Just wanted to thank Jamal aka Zophar321 that!


* Speaking of Jamal… his friend Jake aka Thirstee321 is in the running to be a WCG Ultimate Gamer 2 cast member. This guy is UBER talented and one of the best well rounded gamers I’ve seen in a while. From rhythm to racing to fighting and fps, this guy rises above the rest and he definitely deserves a shot on the show. If you haven’t already voted for him please go to the official WCG Ultimate Gamer 2 website and make sure to vote for Jake! You can vote once every hour per device so bust out your iPhone and your laptop and vote every hour that you can! Also, please tell your friends to do the same. Currently Jake is leading the contest with 49% of the total votes and he only has to hold the lead until Sunday to officially make the cast. I wish you the best of luck Jake, kick some ass!

Well that’s it for now. I’m working on adding more content to my site but I’ve been so busy with work and everything else I’ve got going on that I haven’t been able to get around to it yet. This summer I plan on having exclusive interviews with musicians and gamers as well as coverage of events and video game reviews. Give me some time… and what you get will be nothing short of awesome. ^_^ As always thanks for checking out my site and thank you for all the support. Much love to you all! <3 GAME ON!

Hey guys! I know I haven’t been updating my blog much but it’s because I’ve been SOOO busy! So let me talk about some things that have been going on…


Well as you all know WCG Ultimate Gamer 2 auditions went down recently. I’m very excited to say that some of my good friends are still in the finals for this though and I’ve even been asked to train one of these people to prep for the show so I’m looking forward to that. To everyone who made it to the final casting call, CONGRATS! As you can see getting on Ultimate Gamer is NOT easy. We were tested heavily on games and they’re making sure that the personalities of the people are just as good as their gaming skills to make for some interesting situations in the house. I can’t wait to see season 2 this fall and see all the exciting things that everyone got to do this year! Oh, and I’m totally jealous of you guys by the way… you are in for one hell of a treat!


I WAS spending the past couple months prepping for EVO but once Super Street Fighter came out I was actually pretty disappointed. I’m not really digging the new characters and have since stopped playing SUPER Street Fighter. Just about everyone is picking Juri online and T Hawk is a complete a-hole to fight against. Some matches like Dudley vs Zangief just seem impossible and Hakans ultra just makes me angry. haha The game is nice, it’s just my personal disliking for the new character match ups that makes me not a huge fan. Yeah I’m basing this off from only playing the game 4 times but still, I think I’ll stick with SF4 for now. ^_^ I am however extremely excited to see that both Arcade Infinity AND Family Fun Arcade have Super Street Fighter 4 (360 version) in arcade cabinets up and running. This is a VERY good thing because the fact that arcades have been worried that the release of the arcade version of SSF4 being delayed for so long would hurt their sales is now irrelevant. Basically companies were worried that since SSF4 was supposed to be console only that everyone would stop going to the arcades to play SF4 and while that probably WOULD have been true these two arcades have the smarts to get on top of that and supply the game for the exact same price as SF4. Looks like SSF4 will not have the same fate as Soul Calibur 4, which is very good!

I also got the chance to work on a new game which I have recently been able to talk about since it was just recently released in the app store… Linkin Park’s “8 bit rebellion”. On top of that I have been promoting a video game that I am in called “180″ by HeadCase Games. You can download the game from the app store store today for your iPod and iPhone. I am a playable character in the game found under the name “STAR”. Kick some ass in the game and you can see me doing some awesome Shoryuken motions which was pretty cool of them to put in as a dedication to my liking of Street Fighter 4. ^_^ ON TOP OF THAT I have recently been working for a music/video game company called NeverDie Studios on a new game called RockTropia a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) where the world revolves around music. I’m pretty excited to be working with the company on this game and I know that I’m going to have a ton of fun doing what I do best… promotional/ marketing work. ^_^


Competing wise I’ve been extremely busy going to all of the local tournaments since I’m saving my money for the large New York tournament I’m running. In case you missed it, I’m teaming up with TecHNaSTy to organize a Guitar Hero and Super Street Fighter 4 tournament in the next few months if all goes well. I’m still looking for a couple more sponsors to help me out with making this happen but so far my current sponsors seem to be on board! Many of you are wondering why I’m doing the tournament in New York if I live in Cali… well… I have connections in NY that are helping me with a venue and that’s a major part of this so basically wherever I get the best venue for the best price is where it’s going to be. The lower the entry fee is for you guys the better right? So let me do my thing and make this decent pay for entry with a huge reward. ^_^


As far as my placements go I’ve been doing pretty well considering that I haven’t had much more than one day a week to practice all the games I play! I’ve placed top 3 for Rock Band solo guitar, DJ Hero and Rock Band full band, I have placed top 8 for a few street fighter tournaments in the past two months both here and New York getting knocked out of all tournaments by top players. I have Just Dance tournaments starting this coming wednesday every other week which is good because I not only LOVE this game but LOVE that a new game is being introduced to the competitive scene out here. As far as the large tournaments go I’ve switched up a couple of my events for this year. I found a new LAN that I’ll be competing in the same time as EVO which has a better opportunity for me so I’m headed out that way. I will be at E3 as usual, Devastation is a maybe and there are a couple other tournaments that I will be announcing later. Why am I not disclosing everything now? Well… there’s a few secrets that are still to be disclosed and a few new sponsors this year that are pretty damn amazing that will be helping me to do some VERY cool new things… so… I’m going to make you wait. There’s also a VERY LARGE tournament I’m going to try to qualify for which will be awarding $10,000 to the winners. This is am AMAZING opportunity that is worth missing a “notable” event or two for. What I love most is that its the little tournaments like this that award the most money for the least amount of work. Props to this particular event organizer for contacting me directly about this tournament.


If you’re wondering what’s up with all the new sponsors… here it is. I recently left Empire Arcadia for good. I have nothing bad to say about them… I had some things that I needed to do that were easier for me to accomplish on my own so I decided I should leave and DO SOME WORK. So what does that mean? I’m no longer repping JiNX, but I have a NEW clothing line that I’ll be working with instead. Also, this means I get to work with some companies who I’ve been supporting for a long time now and haven’t had the chance to work with due to conflict of interest with prior teams… now we can finally chill and game it up together!


Community wise I’ve been working with a couple groups to set up some charity events which will hopefully happen before the end of this year. One event I’m especially looking forward to is the Rock-a-Thon part 2! Hopefully this year we’ll rock out and raise more than the $5,000 we did last year. Also thanks to my recent PROJECT NIGHTMARE I now know that I would be able to go the full 4 days of the event without any sleep. Don’t ask how that went by the way. Let’s just say I highly recommend NOT doing what I did. I had never felt so absolutely horrible in my entire life as I did going that long without sleep. -_-


Moving on; I’m going to be doing a chat with the Cub Scouts of pack 17 in Michigan next week to talk about pursuing gaming as a career; the positives and negatives and how to go about it. I really enjoy talking to children about gaming because it’s good to show them that they CAN have a career in this field, it IS possible, but it’s a lot of hard work. I’m told the cub scouts also have an opportunity to earn a belt loop for this conversation which is awesome! I did a similar talk with the kids of Starlight Children’s Foundation last year which had a great turnout. ^_^ I have been a bit bummed lately that I missed Gamers For Giving in Michigan this year due to me writing it down on my calender for the wrong month. I heard they were able to raise nearly $11k to build additional gaming carts for Mott Children’s Hospital, and send video game care packages to troops overseas though which is AMAZING! Congrats to Zach for the great turnout and thank you to everyone who was able to make that happen. Gamers can be capable of some amazing things when they put their minds to it! Also big props to WALSHY for being a great example of how a pro gamer can make an amazing impact on the community. See you next year for Gamers For Giving 2011!


Well, I think that just about wraps it up. I’ve been busy as heck with my new schedule but I’ll try to make some time to game it up with you all. Make sure to send me game requests on XBL to StarSlay3r for some games. I have Tekken 6, Street Fighter 4, Super Street Fighter 4, BlazBlue, PGR4, Guitar Hero (multiple versions), Rock Band 2, Halo 3, COD MW2 and many more to play and am more than happy to join you guys in any game for casuals even if I’m not uber pro at the game. It’s all about having fun! I don’t really care what anyone says, I think the fact that I’m able to play ALL of these games with anyone at ANY time is an awesome thing and I’m happy to be talented enough to be able to play so many games at once. If it wasn’t for the fact that I play so many games I might not have met so many of you cool people who play Street Fighter, Halo, COD, Tekken etc and that would truly be a sad thing! -_-* Well guys that it! Make sure to follow my twitter! @StarSlay3r I’ve been posting where some Guitar Hero tournaments are around the nation since that’s been a request from you guys. I also have friends who are doing Video Game Beta Testing and Focus Testing so I’ll be posting tweets about those for you guys around as well. Average pay is about 40-80 for 30-90 minutes of your time. Not bad eh? Thanks for all the support and much love to all of you guys! <3 Thank you for everything! <3

Well early last year I predicted that Guitar Hero would be meeting it’s fate very soon. I explained that I felt it was time to move on from that game and to explore my options in the pro gaming world to ensure that I’m always keeping myself busy. Last year I notice a DRAMATIC drop in Guitar Hero tournaments ever since the release of Guitar Hero: World Tour. After seeing that Guitar Hero just got worse after that (GH5 and Band Hero) It was very clear that Activision just stopped caring about the game and put more focus into producing as many versions of the game as possible as fast as possible and having celebrities promote the game then they did on ensuring that people actually liked the game and was having fun with it. Every version of the game just got worse and the dollar amount spent per game just went up and up even though sales for each version were worse then they had been before.

Last summer over 150 testers were laid off from Activision as they opened a new division in Quebec, Canada to take over the testing for all of their rhythm games. Recently Kotaku has been posting about the massive lay offs and shut downs associated with all companies involved with Guitar Hero and it’s been announced that the only games scheduled for release this year are Guitar Hero 6 and a new DJ Hero meaning that this is the end of Guitar Heros reign in the rhythm world.

Some excerpts from Kotaku:
“Luxoflux, also responsible for True Crime and Kung Fu Panda games for Activision, is said to have been shut down completely, according to former employees. Approximately 55 people have been let go, according to sources at the company, with some possibly being transferred to Call of Duty developer Treyarch.

Activision is said to have laid off another 50 at developer Neversoft, formerly of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series and responsible for the Guitar Hero series after the departure of Harmonix. “

They later posted:
“In addition to sackings at Neversoft and Luxoflux, Kotaku has learned today that publisher Activision has also laid off employees at RedOctane and internal studio Underground Development.

We’ve heard that RedOctane, the publisher of the original Guitar Hero and creator of the franchise’s plastic instruments, has been completely shut down. Those responsible directly for the series’ hardware will now report straight to Activision, while those remaining – around 30-40 people – have been shown the door.

Also reportedly affected is Underground Development, an Activision studio responsible for games like Guitar Hero: Van Halen and…BMX XXX. We’ve heard that, as of today, the entire studio has been shut down.”

Activision says:
“As we discussed on our earnings conference call yesterday, we are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities”

Oh COME ON! Don’t act like you JUST NOW discovered you guys spent WAAAAY too much money on the Guitar Hero series. What happened to just going the route of Guitar Hero 2? That game was all word of mouth and was a HUGE seller. Once they made 50 million versions of the game and paid every celebrity that would agree to get in their underwear and slide across the floor, they should have known they spent WAAAY too much money on the franchise and they were slowly strangling it to death. All they had to do is give us Guitar Hero fans 2 REALLY GOOD Guitar Hero versions in a year and we’d be happy. DLC keeps us busy… they kept coming up with SO many versions of the game and forced everyone to purchase peripheral after peripheral and it just got annoying. Am I wrong? Please… state how you feel about this!!! I loved Guitar Hero and all… but after Smash Hits and Metallica I got sick of the game.

With all of the lay offs the end is near for Guitar Hero. What does that mean for me? Nothing much! I haven’t done much with Guitar Hero lately as there are only 2 competitions involving Guitar Hero planned for this year Devastation and WCG 2010 and due to the fact that the game for both is Guitar Hero 5 and it’s basically just going to come down to whoever memorizes the best star bath and not really involve skill at all, I’m most likely not competing in either competition this year. I have been too busy with my plans to start my own business and practicing Street Fighter 4 for EVO to sit around and watch star path videos. I WILL however, still be competing in Rock Band 2 tournaments.

To everyone who recently lost their jobs due to all of this. I am sorry for your loss… I too was laid off last year so I know how it is to go through the lay off process. My advice to you all, collect your unemployment and use your time off to do something you’ve always wanted to do.. trust me… there are bigger and better things waiting for you out there. I wish you all the best of luck in the future.

To anyone who focuses their career on Guitar Hero only… I tried to warn you.

I noticed I haven’t written a blog in a while so I decided I should write something just for the heck of it.

As you guys already noticed… yes… I’m on Sony’s new show The Tester. I’ve been receiving a lot of questions from you guys asking why I decided to be on the show. Well, basically here it is. I’m a pro gamer… if you haven’t noticed there are NO game tournaments this time of year. I was unemployed for about 2 months when I heard about the show. My last job was as what? Yes, a tester. I did Microsoft technical requirements group work at a major video game publisher as well as regular quality assurance testing, OEM testing and some multiplayer testing for 2 years. When I heard about The Tester I looked at it as a JOB which I need not as another shot to be on TV. In case you haven’t noticed it’s nearly impossible to get a testing job with Sony. I tried for 2 years prior to this show and now we’re talking about a 1 year contract with Sony and a 5k signing bonus to move to San Diego and be a quality assurance tester. For me being in the position I was in I’d be stupid to NOT audition for the show.

Basically I liked this show a lot because it was probably the closest to reality that any reality show could have got. Basically the last show I did was pretty fake from people being prompted to say or do things to the edits that were done. I watched the show every week to see parts where I’d talk about my daughter cut and pasted into the show trailer like I’m talking about the show, or even sometimes I’d say something about Dante and they’d cut it into me talking about Rob. Because of that I said I’ll never do another reality show again. So why am I on the tester then? Well they’re looking for an employee… so basically they want someone that’s going to be good at the job so drama, fights, all of this stuff are things that’d ruin your chance at winning the show because why would they want someone like that working for them? You know! This show was LEGIT!

The gamers “Dream Job” is how they described the position. I think many of you don’t get what this means. No, being just a TESTER is not necessarily every gamers dream job… but if you are looking at it like that you are not looking at the full picture. Being a TESTER is a foot in the door in the gaming industry. Every video game producer, artist, etc. started off as a game tester. You need that original job to get into the company and to move forward into a higher paying and better position so in a way, this IS a dream job for gamers who want to do ANYTHING in the gaming industry because this is how you start!

Also, I’d like to just throw this in here… I have already noticed people trash talking me because they recognize me from Ultimate Gamer. It’s a shame, but it’s to be expected. I have dedicated 10 years to competitive gaming… I have a passion for gaming that can not be stopped by any troll out there. I have accomplished A LOT in the past 3 years alone. I have traveled the world (Mexico and Japan in the past 6 months), met some of the coolest people I’ve ever met in my entire life (Hal Sparks, Kevin Pereira, MarkMan, Katsuhiro Harada, Herman Li) made some amazing partnerships with companies (Jinx, gunnar, music skins, coffin case, etc) have had the most intense matches EVER (acai28, gnarblast, and all the 12 other countries top players in WCG Pan American Championships) and have a large group of supporters that stand by my side no matter what and believe in me. For this I am forever thankful. All these positive things BY FAR outweigh the few haters out there.

FACT: No tv show can ever portray me as I really am. Do you NORMALLY live in a house with 11-12 random strangers for a month and compete for a job and money? Do you NORMALLY have to worry about being sent home after having $100,000 dangled in front of your face? Do you NORMALLY compete in tournaments with 10 cameras pointed at you knowing if you fail you just lost your shot at a job? NO… so really… this ISN’T reality… situations are completely different then anything you’d ever encounter in real life and you need to just accept that. Watch the show for what it is… entertainment. If you’re watching the show just to root for me to lose then that’s fine, basically you’re doing exactly what the producers want anyways… WATCHING. You’ll watch every week in hopes I lose… and every week you’re adding to the ratings making the show a success. So thank you. If you want to know me the only way to do that is to talk to me in person. I’m always out at local arcades/tournaments and you can feel free to send me a game request on xbox live and we can chat it up while playing! I’m a nice, laid back, just like to have fun kinda person… so if you’re chill too then hang out with me sometime! I’m always down for meeting new people.

Well, that’s all I have to say! Thanks for reading… GAME ON!

CHECK OUT NAUCIOUS’ VLOG ABOUT BEING ON THE TESTER

Well guys, this is what happens when you become a “known” gamer…

ORIGINAL BLOG POST 11/15 2:48PM
Yesterday while at the Triple Threat tournament it was brought to my attention that someone from the Street Fighter community was accused of trash talking me on the League Of Legends forums. Upon hearing that, of course, I had to investigate. Upon going to the forums I found out that it was actually worse than I was informed… my identity had been stolen and the person was posting a thread to upset the community.

The following names were registered without my knowledge: EMP StarSlay3r, StarSlay3r and lol StarSlay3r
The only name that is registered to me, and was created TODAY is: realStarSlay3r

I already don’t have enough time in a day to do everything that I want, but now do I REALLY need to dedicate time to going to EVERY games official website and registering my name before the trolls do? It’s also even worse if the person who did this did it for the pure amusement of knowing that people would fight about it for 3 days or just to get hits on thread postings. Why must MY name be used as a tool to drive traffic to YOUR website, blog, forum, etc.?

To anyone who was offended on what was posted on the LOL forum… I can’t say sorry because I didn’t say it, but just know it was just a random troll and brush it off. To anyone who gave me offers to join their team or gave me words of encouragement… thank you, but I don’t even play League of Legends.

UPDATE! 11/15 11:50PM:

I just received an email letting me know that Riot Games has resolved the issue! Not sure if he wants all of you knowing who he is so I deleted his name…

StarSlay3r,

My name is ****, and I am a community manager for Riot Games, the developers for League of Legends. I came across the post on your blog regarding people impersonating you on our forums, and I wanted to let you know that I have seen to the matter. I have returned the identity StarSlay3r to the account that you registered yourself, and I have also taken the liberty of reserving the name ‘StarSlay3r’ in our account creation system so that no further iterations of the name can be registered.

Oh, and should the uncouth ruffians who engineered this dastardly plot decide to post again, you will be pleased to know that they will henceforth be known as: WildStallion, PunchDrunkRhino, and GroggyKoala. Branding trolls with silly, embarrassing names is just another service that we provide here at Riot Games.



Best regards,

-****’

Thank you Riot Games! Issue… RESOLVED!

I’ve been hearing a lot about the all new Super Street Fighter 4 and now that there’s more information slowly coming out, I have to say I’m really excited about the game and will most likely be picking up a copy once it’s available for release. Basically if it’s SF4 plus new characters, new stages and upgrades I’m all for it. The one thing that really has me sold is the fact that now friends can get together in lobbies and play together. The reason why I really like this is because it’s more arcade-ish. Before you could only basically play games over and over with one person until you get sick of playing with them, and I’ve often found myself switching to characters I’m not very familiar with just to make things interesting. In BlazBlue you can have up to ten people in a lobby and the winner from the last game can take on any opponent that wants to ready up and take the challenge… I’m just hoping that SF4’s new lobby system works the same way. I’m also happy to hear that they should be leveling off the characters… while I used to play with Sagat, I too agree he was a little bit overpowered, but nothing compared to Zangief or Seth.

Moving on to the additional characters aspect… any old SF4 characters that are brought back for this series… I honestly probably don’t know them. I just picked up SF4 and have never played the game prior to SF4’s release. I played SF2 (all versions) a couple times but I still don’t know all the character differences and such, but what has me intrigued is this new character Juri. Basically 1) She’s the first truly evil character (and you guys know I always go for the bad ass ones!) 2) She looks like she deals a crap ton of damage 3) She appears as though she’d be tougher (in terms of taking damage well) than the other females in SF4. In all honesty, I’m probably going to go straight to her when the game comes out and see how she plays. Is it just because she’s a female character? No. I honestly don’t pay attention to male or female when picking a character in the game, their personality and play style determines which character I end up choosing when playing a fighting game. I’m also interested in the fact that she is a tae kwan do fighter… so it’ll be interesting to see how well she plays.

Well, I’m hoping to maybe somehow get a chance to play the new SSF4 so that I can give it a good thorough run through and give a review. Capcom, please don’t disappoint me! I’m uber hyped about this game!

Lately I’ve been getting asked a lot of questions, one of which seems to keep arising is “Why don’t you call yourself ‘The best female guitar hero player’ or ‘The best female street fighter player’ or ‘the best female *insert game here* player’. Well basically the answer is this…

There is ALWAYS someone better out there than me, and I’m smart enough to realize this. First of all, I don’t want to call myself the best FEMALE anything because that is just drawing attention to the fact that I’m a girl, and if I’m correct… all of us are trying to break the stereotypical “I have boobs watch me play games” stereotype right? Well, the closest thing to BEST anything you’ll see on my profile is that I am the TOP FEMALE all around gamer. I believe there are SEVERAL top players, but no one person is ever “the best”. I’m hoping to break a few world records and rack up some more top 5 finishes to earn the ability to be able to call myself THE TOP all around gamer period. As of right now I haven’t attended Iron Man of gaming to see how I place and I currently don’t hold any world records, so I don’t see it fit to say anything other than … so far I am the top female gamer in the industry. With 30+ top 5 finishes for 8 games in 3 genres I am doing pretty well considering I have done professional gaming on the side for 10 years coming 2nd to having a full time job, going to college, and managing a family. All but 1 of my 30+ top 5 finishes were from tournaments that had either all male or both male and female competitors.

In ten years I’ve come a long way as a GAMER period, and I don’t intend on stopping anytime soon. From becoming one of the top guitar hero players in the world (highest ranking was 5th overall on scorehero.com in 2008 and ranked 7th overall in the pan american region of the world at the world cyber games pan american championships in 2009) to traveling the world as a host covering gaming news all over the U.S. and Japan, I try to ensure my life revolves around gaming in every aspect.

While I have placed well in many tournaments, I will probably never label myself THE BEST FEMALE at any one particular game anytime in the future… even if it’s true. My goal is to be a top player in general. In the end it doesn’t matter how many battle points you have, what your true skill ranking is or how many songs you full comboed ONCE to get on top of the charts…. basically what it all comes down to is are you good enough to last in tournaments? Are you good enough to do well under the pressure, with all lights on and all the faces staring at you? It’s so simple these days to crack under pressure and lose in a match you shouldn’t have or wouldn’t have if you were at home in your room with the lights off and your techno music blaring… in the end… THAT is what matters. I just like to go to tournaments often to ensure I always know what the competition is up to. Yeah, so I’m ranked higher than “player x” and below “player y” but that doesn’t mean that “player x” won’t whoop my ass at a tournament sometime in the future… people need to realize that with all games mistakes happen, we are only human, and no one TRULY deserves the right to call themselves THE BEST anything without solid results to back it up.

I will not hide behind a title of BEST FEMALE whatever for attention, I will show you my skills as I take on both men and women alike and still come out on top… Male or Female doesn’t matter, so for those who fight for the title “BEST FEMALE…” stop drawing attention to yourself for being a girl, because basically that’s THE ONLY thing that  you have going for you. No boobs, no attention, your gaming resume is a joke. I place well… and I JUST HAPPEN to be a girl.

In closing… only 2 people have the right to call themselves “THE BEST” 1- Fatal1ty and 2- Justin Wong. Rant over!

Representing the Valkyries of Arcadia… GAME ON!

Well I’ve been in Japan for over a week now and there’s one major difference that just blows my mind… Japanese arcades out here aren’t just plentiful, they’re HUGE! The average arcade out here is approximately 5 stories tall but they also usually have games in their basement making for a total of 6 floors of gaming goodness.

I spent a good chunk of time hanging out in Akihabara since that is not just the technology capitol of Japan, it’s also gaming central. I walked into SO many arcades and it seemed like every couple blocks I walked there was ANOTHER arcade for me to go into. The biggest arcade of them all is probably without a doubt the best arcade in the world… CLUB SEGA! Even though you’ll notice many Club Sega’s while in Japan, the one across from Akihabara station is the main Club Sega and the best of them all. Not all Club Sega’s are the same… some are just full of slot machines and the ever so annoying Pachinko machines.

THIS Club Sega, however is 6 floors of gaming and a whole basement dedicated to BlazBlue and Street Fighter 4. I also found out out that the 4th floor is home to Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion, a Tekken 6 update ONLY in arcades and ONLY in Japan, as well as Virtua Fighter 5 R which is again another Japan only update for the game which brings back Sumo wrestler Taka Arashi from Virtua Fighter 3 and French karate newcomer Jean, who bumps the full line-up to 20 fighters including boss character Dural. The game has all new stages, hundreds of tweeks and improvements and is a definite must play for Virtua Fighter fans!

I’m super excited to finally compete against some Japanese players out here. One of the things I really love is that I’m able to play against opponents all the time thanks to the way they have their machines set up. With Street Fighter, for example, they have about 10 machines and they line up 5 of them in a row and place them back to back. This type of gaming set up is already a plus in my book because I like not knowing who my opponent is. Also, to make it even better the first 6 machines are all hooked up to each other making it so that when you win you automatically get hooked up with another winner from another machine, but even if you lose you still have another 5 machines you could hook up with ensuring you always have an opponent to play with.

What’s also great about arcades out here is that they use the cards to track your stats on all fighting games. In the states we don’t use cards for SF4 (for example) but in Japan I was able to purchase a card and lock in Sagat. The only bad thing was that since I can’t read Japanese I accidently selected the wrong option and was stuck with the name “Unknown Player” for my profile. :p I got a chance to sit down at machines when they weren’t in use and browse player stats. I was surprised to see that 7 out of the top 10 players on each machine were actually Sagat. I was also surprised to see that there were players with over 800-900k battle points on the machines. WOW! I was pretty excited to rack up some wins and score some battle points on my card even though I can only use it here.

Tekken 6 Bloodline Rebellion is pretty similar to regular Tekken 6. The 2 extra characters don’t really affect the game and I didn’t see many people picking Alisa or Lars anyways. Yesterday I got my first loss on Tekken 6 since I’ve been in Japan. The match was pretty intense but I have to thank the guys at Video 94 for all the help they’ve given me back home. Practicing with the best players in the U.S. really gave me the upper hand playing in Japan. The match I lost on would have the winner determined by whoever got one punch or kick in first since we were in a 2-2 match each with only 1 sliver of life left poking and blocking like crazy. I made a mistake in blocking high and got caught off guard by a fake out and low attack, unfortunately the arcades here don’t allow video footage so this epic match wasn’t recorded… best loss ever in my opinion.

This brings me to the one BIG negative thing about arcades out here. They have a no photography or video taping rule. I have tried to sneak pics here and there and have had to be all ninja like in getting the few pics that I WAS able to obtain, but for the most part they don’t allow this in ANY arcade ANYWHERE in Japan. It’s really disappointing since there are some awesome players out here that really deserve recognition.

A big plus in the arcades out here, besides the fact that they have every game that you could ever dream of inside, is that they are also VERY clean! They keep the arcades clean and well maintained and on top of that they also provide hand wipes at every game so that you can clean your hands after playing. No worries about getting sick from playing SF4 or Guitar Freaks for hours at the arcade. I love it! I wish we could be a bit more like that in the U.S.

Well, tomorrow I’m off to Akihabara to do coverage for GirlGamer.com so make sure to check the Machinima youtube page for updates. I’ll post videos that I’ve done once they’re up! Until then, I’ll keep dreaming