NPH FTW! (That's New Phyrexia, NOT Neil Patrick Harris...)

It was a pretty gloomy weekend - the forecast called for rain, rain, and more rain. So, at the very, very last-minute (mostly to avoid mind-numbing boredom and cabin fever) I decided to tag along with Myles to the New Phyrexia, Magic: The Gathering (a competitive deck-building card game, for all you non-nerds) release event at Heavy Support Games. We already had plans in the west end in the evening, so it made pretty good sense. If I dropped after the first few rounds, I could always meet up with my friend early and wait for Myles to finish.

Let me get one thing straight: I don't really play a lot of Magic. Myles tries his best to teach me, and in the last 3.5 years, I've played in a total of 3 events - the first one when I had only been playing for about 3 weeks. I only like to play limited, and even then, only sealed (as opposed to draft). But, over the years, I have watched a lot of Magic being played, especially the last two sets: Scars of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Beseiged.

Oh boy...this won't be very interesting to most people, so I will keep it simple.

I opened a lot of really good cards, so the deck pretty much built itself. For the sake of the two or three people who read this and know MTG, these were my bombs:

Like I said, the deck built itself: these were no-brainers, and I just filled the rest up with creatures and removal, plus I splashed white for an Arrest and a Divine Offering. I'm not the most confident player but the people who play at Heavy Support are generally really nice. They are pretty patient and let me take back mistakes (of which I make many) and they are usually gracious in defeat. This was most certainly the case on Saturday when, against all odds, I ended up going 4-0 in the first 4 rounds. There was only one person who seemed to get frustrated playing against my deck and who complained a little about me playing too slowly. Our match never went to time, or even the five-minute warning, so I was pretty sure I wasn't THAT slow. He was just frustrated, which is understandable.

In the final round, I was paired down against someone with a 2-2 record. That was a bit odd, since I probably should have been playing at least a 3-1 or another 4-0 (like Myles!!). I spoke with the guy running the event and found out that I was listed as 3-1 (he told me that the guy who complained about me said that HE won, which was not true...although, at one point I thought he conceded, so I started to scoop up my cards. Whoops! We played it out and I won so I'm pretty sure it was just an honest mistake). Myles and one other person had 4-0 records and agreed to split, giving them a final record of 4-0-1, which meant that I actually had a chance to win the whole damn thing! Alas, my luck ran out in the final match where I either never drew my bombs, or the guy had an answer to them. I'm also sure I made a lot of mistakes because he was pushing the pace a little which kinda made me nervous.

In the end, since I lost to someone with a much lower record than mine, my 4-1 record put me at around 5th or 6th place - enough to win 3 packs (a far cry from the 15 or so I could have won). But, it was still a pretty good feeling to do so well, and it was certainly unexpected. Of the 7 people in our group, 5 of us finished in the top 6! I think that I must learn through osmosis and just hanging out with this particular group of nerds has made me a better Magic player, whether I like it, or not!

And, slowly, I am starting to like it...

Music to my nerdy ears!

I know there is at least one person out there (Hi, Alyxx!! /wave) who wants me to keep up with this stupid "gaming" blog, so I will oblige with a little post about Video Games Live: Bonus Level, which I went to with my boyfriend earlier this week.

Sweet & delicious ramune

Like most of our trips to Massey Hall, this one began with dinner at Guu, an awesome little Japanese izakaya with all kinds of cool, unique little dishes - kinda like Japanese tapas. I finally tried the Kabocha Korokke which is a hard-boiled egg inside of a pumpkin croquette...weird, I know, but quite tasty. Myles always gets the kimchi rice in a stone bowl, and I like to get the bbq eel on cheesy rice. YUMMM!! And, of course, we always, always, always, order a Ramune Sawa - ramune and vodka. If you've never had a ramune, do yourself a favour and pick one up next time you're at an Asian market (or you can pay double at a comic convention) and, if you can figure out how to open it, you're in for a very sweet and yummy treat!

Oh, right...this is supposed to be a gaming blog!!

So, I had no idea what Video Games Live was. It just seemed like something that both Myles and I would find entertaining and after doing a bit of research, I discovered that it's a pretty popular show. So, I scooped up tickets 5 months in advance, just to be on the safe side, and it was a good thing I did! It was a sold out show! VGL sets out to showcase video game music as a legitimate form of art, complete with symphony orchestra and choir...but it is far from a typical "symphony" performance. The music is synchronized with video clips from the games, and the show's creator/producer, Tommy Tallarico, encourages the audience to yell out and cheer for their favourites. I patiently waited for the inevitable World of Warcraft segment, and Myles was pretty happy with the opening number - a medley of music set to a montage of some iconic classics, including: Pong, Donkey Kong, Tetris, Punch-Out, and Ghosts and Goblins (which made Myles especially happy).

The show was also peppered with some pretty amusing video interludes. I was particularly fond of the video game mash-ups, like this Sonic vs. Pac-Man: 

Or, this Mortal Kombat vs Donkey Kong video that made me reminisce about the day I discovered the Mortal Kombat arcade machine in the basement of the law library. Coincidentally, that was also the day that "going to study at the library" took on a whole new meaning:



There were also some pretty cool guest performances, including Martin "The Video Game Pianist" Leung, who kept the audience captivated and amazed by his double-time performance of the already-impossibly-fast Mario theme. Not to be outdone, Laura Intravia gave an epic, operatic performance of the God of War soundtrack, and later completely switched gears with an extremely cute flute performance dressed as Link. The performance of Baba Yetu - the first-ever video game music to win a Grammy - was so moving, that it compelled me to go out and buy Civilization IV. That will probably turn out to be a mistake, since I have no idea how to play and I spent about 2500 years doing little else than building the 7 Wonders of the World in a city filled with very unhappy citizens. Not a very good winning strategy...

Overall, the show was extremely entertaining. There were a bunch of prize giveaways, generously donated by The Future Shop, and lots of audience interaction. The head-to-head Frogger competition was cute, especially since one contestant had never even played it before. But, the real highlight for me was the dude who won the Guitar Hero competition in the lobby prior to the show. He was challenged to reach a score of 220,000 playing Van Halen's Jump on Hard, accompanied by the symphony and Tommy on electric guitar. When he heard the challenge, he pointed up, indicating that it was too easy, and instead he played on Expert, and aimed for 200,000 points, which he reached with about 30 seconds to spare. It was quite impressive and the crowd was totally into it, myself included.

Oh!! I forgot about the guy who arranged with Tommy beforehand to be called on stage with his girlfriend under the guise of a "couple's competition", who then proposed to her saying, "sometimes it takes 7 years to save the princess..." or something equally sappy/nerdy as that. She said yes. /cheer

The great thing about Video Games Live is that they never tour the same show twice, so it's always evolving. They might always include WoW or Final Fantasy, but they'll choose different music or arrangements. I'm sure there were many repeat customers at this show who were not disappointed, and I'm also pretty certain that I'll be one myself the next time they come around...as long as I find out about it 5 months in advance.

Here's the only video I took at the show. It was the second encore. Myles and I don't play Portal so we had no idea what it was, but apparently it plays over the end credits to that game and is called "Still Alive". Even though we don't play, this song has been stuck in our heads for days...