I just found a very cool and short video featured on YouTube about Global Warming. Here it is, enjoy!

Okay, so it came out last Sunday and I did get the game that morning, but I was busy during the day and didn’t play it until the night. I had to wait through the a whole half day to play it! Ah well, I’ll start by saying that it definitely lives up to all the praise that it has received from so many groups of people. But like any other game, it isn’t perfect (even though Nintendo Power says so). The following video is the pretty cool introduction (opening) video.

I have to say that the soundtrack that is played during the game is just amazing. It fits each stage very well and brings the game to a whole new level. You can listen to some of the songs in Brawl on the Smash Bros. Site’s Music Section (here). The best song in Brawl in my opinion, is the Zelda: Ocarina of Time Melody.

Classic Link (From: Smash Bros. DOJO!!)

The Smash Balls are very cool and each Final Smash is also very awesome. I still really like Link’s Triforce Slash as it is not only entertaining to watch others get beat up by and and fly but it also is powerful. Right now, my main character is Pit. I found Link to be a noticeable amount slower in Brawl (from all the cool weapons he has) but he still is a great character to play as. Pit is really fast, especially when he flies, his Final Smash isn’t really “powerful”, but it hits most of the other players and knocks them off the stage.

Newcomer Pit (From: Smash Bros. DOJO!!)

Many of the stages are well built for fighting. I really like New Pork City as it is a really large stage and if you use Pit’s Final Smash, people get knocked off easily.

New Pork City (From: Smash Bros. DOJO!!)

Many of the stages, though, are not as big. Most of them are just a bunch of platforms. Below are more stages in Brawl

The Basic Battlefield (From: Smash Bros. DOJO!!)

Skyworld, Pit’s home stage (From: Smash Bros. DOJO!!)

They’ve also brought back some stages from Super Smash Bros. Melee. This includes the Temple (Hyrule Temple), Corneria, Yoshi’s Island, and Onett.

Hyrule Temple, is back from Melee (Source: Smash Bros. DOJO!!)

…and so is Onett! (Source: Smash Bros. DOJO!!)

I’ll go over the new items and The Subspace Emissary (Adventure Mode) in the next post. If you have Brawl, don’t play too much but have fun with it too!

I don’t have an iPhone, but I can say this is a pretty crucial part in the “iLife” of the iPhone. Apple also released the news that they will be providing an “App Store” (No more “jailbreaking”) as a part of the iPhone firmware. Here a developer can sell apps for free or for a price. If you are selling it, you get to keep 70% of your earnings and 30% goes to Apple. Otherwise, if your app is free, you don’t have to pay Apple anything. You will be able to download apps in June of this year.

iPhone App Store Icon/Logo

For now, you can download the SDK at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/
for free. Apple also gives you the option of joining their “iPhone Developer Program” which for individuals is $99, and for enterprises $299. This program will allow you to have access to a bunch of resources on their site and “code-level” support from Apple engineers.

Also, Apple has set up an “iFund” (ooh, very creative name. Just like the others iPhone, iPod, iMac, in other words, “i” EVERYTHING) which will fund 100 million dollars to iPhone developers (not one, obviously), and is managed by KPCB. Other than that, I don’t know much more about it. It also will act as a way for more people to get into developing iPhone apps which will not only make Apple happy but also iPhone users. But not only that, it’ll cause more people to buy the iPhone and use it.

So if you are one of those iPhone owners, you should be excited as this means you could play backgammon, Spore (yes, that intriguing life form game), or do whatever else you want (if you know how to code) and what others want.

For more info. check out CNET’s iPhone SDK Articles (here) and Apple’s iPhone Website (here). Remember, Super Smash Bros. Brawl comes out on Sunday and if you go to Gamestop, they’ll be having a midnight release of the game and I might go to it.

Woot! Super Smash Bros. Brawl (aka just “Brawl”) comes out this Sunday, March 9th! I’m really excited as this is one of the most anticipated Wii games ever.

North American Box-art (from the English Wikipedia)

For those who don’t know, Super Smash Bros. is a multiplayer fighting game where one is a Nintendo character and tries to hit the other players off the stage.

Things that are new in Brawl include 3rd Party Characters like Snake. Also, in this game you can fight others through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. In Brawl, there is also a new “Final Smash” move which you activate by destroying a “Smash Ball” this final smash could be an ultra-powerful attacks or temporary transformations. Many of the core aspects of the game is still the same. Including general battle layout with percentages of damage at the bottom which as it increases causes the player to be easily knocked off the stage. The various items that appear in the game still are there such as Pokeballs.

Screenplay Image (Source: Wikipedia.org)

The line between desktop apps and web apps are blurring. Adobe is one of the companies leading in the development of these desktop-like web apps. This is an open source platform based off of Adobe Flash. (Err, what else, it is from Adobe!) You can download the Flex SDK to develop web apps on any IDE (Integrated Development Environment) such as Eclipse. Adobe is also offering a program called Adobe® Flex® Builder™ 3 which you how to pay for. But if you are a student or educator, you can get it for free. (See here)

Adobe Flex Logo. Image from the English Wikipedia.

There are many apps already out there made with Flex. This includes a cool program called Pikeo, a photo sharing website. Complete with animations and transitions. Another one is similar to FotoFlexer, called Picnik. This one has many tols to edit photos and it even has an auto-fix feature.

Picnik, an online photo editor! Image from http://www.bollyball.com/

One of my favorite Flex apps now is Scrapblog, and guess what it does. Hmm….. Oh online scrapbooking! It includes a wide variety of photo editing tools and also the functionality to make quick and easy online scrapbooks with transitions and background music. And you don’t even need to sign up to start making online scrapbooks!

Scrapblog, and online Scrapbooker. Image from http://www.longworthblog.com/

Well, that’s it for now. You can also check out some other Flex apps at the Flex Showcase. There is no doubt that I’ll be reviewing more Flex apps as they come. So stay tuned!