Craig and Brent Renaud know how to film difficult settings. The filmmaker brothers from Little Rock have made documentaries about wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the drug war in Juarez and post-earthquake Haiti. But according to Brent Renaud, none of those compare to a recent shoot in Egypt, where the fledgling news network Al Jazeera America sent him and the correspondent Christof Putzel a few weeks ago.
"The anti-Americanism is so intense on both sides, but particularly on the military side, the more moderate Muslim side that's against the Muslim Brotherhood who's protesting in the streets. They believe the U.S. has been pro-Muslim Brotherhood. They believe the foreign press has been pro-Muslim Brotherhood. The general of the military has fanned the flames, telling the public that they should be suspicious of all foreigners, especially Americans. Because of that, bringing out your camera in the street is extremely dangerous, almost impossible."
Brent said that he and Putzel made it inside a massive Muslim Brotherhood protest once and were relatively safe, aside from the risk of sniper fire. But he said trying to get inside the protest was another story.
"If you're on the periphery trying to get in, supporters of the military, or basically roving thugs of young men, some allegedly paid by the military, are looking for foreigners and cameras, and they will attack you.
"In one case, [the supporters of the military] had picked off a Muslim Brotherhood protester on the outskirts of the crowd and the mob was beating him, and they dragged him right past us, and I pulled out a small Handycam I was using and attempted to film that. They were beating him half to death. The military saw it, and started shooting machine guns up in the air to break up the crowd. And then as the crowd began to disperse, they saw me filming it. And then the crowd turned on us. They hit me on the back of the head. I started running for the car. Christof started running to the car. We had a translator with us. He was at first not able to reach the car. The driver thought he was in the car and started driving, but we managed to stop down the road and let him in just as the crowd started beating on the car."
Footage from that harrowing chase as well as interviews Brent and Putzel did with a supporter of the military and the mother of a Muslim Brotherhood protester who was killed led the Aug. 20 debut broadcast of "America Tonight," Al Jazeera America's flagship nightly news program anchored by CNN veteran Joie Chen. The network, a spin-off from the Qatar-funded media conglomerate, has made much noise about staking a unique position among cable news outlets.
"Viewers will see a news channel unlike the others, as our programming proves Al Jazeera America will air fact-based, unbiased and in-depth news," Ehab Al Shihabi, the channel's acting chief executive, told the New York Times. "There will be less opinion, less yelling and fewer celebrity sightings."
Al Jazeera acquired Current TV in January for $500 million. In the run-up to the launch of the network, it hired some 900 employees.
But its launch has not been smooth. AT&T dropped the network from its line-up in the 11th hour, which kept millions of potential viewers from seeing the channels launch. Al Jazeera America promptly sued.
The Renaud brothers said that they're excited about working with Al Jazeera America. Already, they've done two projects for "America Tonight" — the dispatch from Egypt and a feature on Chicago gangs that was shown in four parts and will eventually appear on the channel as a feature special. Each featured Putzel, but tended more towards the Renauds' verite style than something you'd see on "60 Minutes."
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2013年8月29日星期四
Full-Service Gambling: Addiction Treatment
Full-Service Gambling: Addiction Treatment
FOR A MAN with many, overlapping interests, Anthony Sobb appears remarkably unconflicted.
Sobb is CEO of one of Australia’s more successful registered clubs, Sydney’s Fairfield RSL, where gaming revenue runs to $39 million per year. If the club Sobb runs lines up with government estimates, some 41 per cent — or $16 million — of its vast poker machine revenue comes from problem gamblers.
Sobb is also chairman, a few doors down the road, of Oakdene House, a treatment centre he founded in 2012 to help Fairfield’s problem gamblers. He is the embodiment of the federal Coalition’s new problem-gambling policy, which would encourage poker-machine operators to partner with counselling services to root out gambling addicts in their venues. Except he’s gone further — Anthony Sobb has set up his own.
In the quiet halls of Oakdene House, this provider of both poison and cure is confidently explaining why gambling regulation is doomed to failure.
One by one he ticks off and discards proposed measures for tackling Australia’s runaway obsession with the bet.
“[Problem gamblers are] incredibly intelligent people,” he reasons. “Cutting down the number of poker machines? They will find another gambling form of choice.
“Saying you can’t put hundred dollar notes in the machine? They’ll play two machines with $50 in them.
“Saying you can only get $200 a day out of ATMs? They’ll get a couple of different cards and they’ll go to different ATMs.”
Certainly, he allows, “the opportunities to gamble have now vastly increased. That’s got to tell you, if you do the maths, there’s going to be more issues in relation to problem gamblers”.
But his club must contribute to that problem, operating many dozens of glittering poker machines. Aren’t his two roles in conflict? Sobb shrugs at the suggestion. “There are going to be sceptics out there who say it’s a conflict,” he says. “What can I do about that?”
ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2007, in an interview on the election campaign trail, then-Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd spoke candidly about Australian state governments’ unique embrace of the pokies.
“I hate poker machines,” he told The Australian newspaper, “and I know something of their impact on families.”
He signalled federal intervention on the issue. “It’s of sufficient concern to me for this not to just drop off the radar,” he said.
Rudd's comments, and the mood for change that accompanied Labor’s election that November, seemed to prompt a review of the place of gambling machines in Australian life. Despite its small population, Australia has the fifth-largest number of poker machines of any country in the world, and Australians lose more money per capita on gambling than any other country.
Depending on whose estimate you use, something between 22 and 60 percent of gambling-machine revenue is drawn from problem gamblers, and state governments (not including Western Australia, where poker machines are banned outside Crown’s Burswood Casino) have come to rely on gambling losses for some 10 per cent of their annual revenue.
In his first go-round as Prime Minister, Rudd enlisted World Vision chief and long-time anti-pokies activist Tim Costello to advise him on the issue. The Leader of the Liberal-National Coalition Government at the time, Brendan Nelson, expressed his own concerns about poker machines, and called for a Productivity Commission report into the industry. Even the clubs’ lobby group, Clubs Australia, joined the chorus for a national inquiry, saying it welcomed the opportunity to show the industry's progress in warding gambling addicts away from venues. In October 2008, Prime Minister Rudd asked the Productivity Commission to begin its work, and provide figures and recommendations upon which the government could base its policy agenda.
Half a decade on, it all seems so naive: as if the barrier to reforming Australia’s multi-billion dollar poker-machine industry could merely have been a dearth of reliable, rigorous research. The Commission’s report, released in 2010, found that, overall, gambling rates had declined, but there was no evidence that problem gamblers were contributing any less to the industry’s bottom line than they were 10 years earlier.
A slew of harm-minimisation measures was recommended. Poker machines should be fitted with pre-commitment technology, allowing punters to nominate how much they’d lose in a single session, the commission said, and the maximum value of bets should be capped at $1. These measures found their way into a reform package championed by Independent Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie.
But the “Wilkie Reforms” withered in the face of a multi-million dollar campaign run against them by Clubs Australia. On billboards targeted at marginal Labor MPs, in television spots, and public rallies, the industry cast the measures as “un-Australian”, and warned that they would send pubs and clubs broke. Behind the scenes, the Australian Electoral Commission recorded a dramatic spike in political donations from the pub and club lobbies to the major parties, principally to the Coalition.
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FOR A MAN with many, overlapping interests, Anthony Sobb appears remarkably unconflicted.
Sobb is CEO of one of Australia’s more successful registered clubs, Sydney’s Fairfield RSL, where gaming revenue runs to $39 million per year. If the club Sobb runs lines up with government estimates, some 41 per cent — or $16 million — of its vast poker machine revenue comes from problem gamblers.
Sobb is also chairman, a few doors down the road, of Oakdene House, a treatment centre he founded in 2012 to help Fairfield’s problem gamblers. He is the embodiment of the federal Coalition’s new problem-gambling policy, which would encourage poker-machine operators to partner with counselling services to root out gambling addicts in their venues. Except he’s gone further — Anthony Sobb has set up his own.
In the quiet halls of Oakdene House, this provider of both poison and cure is confidently explaining why gambling regulation is doomed to failure.
One by one he ticks off and discards proposed measures for tackling Australia’s runaway obsession with the bet.
“[Problem gamblers are] incredibly intelligent people,” he reasons. “Cutting down the number of poker machines? They will find another gambling form of choice.
“Saying you can’t put hundred dollar notes in the machine? They’ll play two machines with $50 in them.
“Saying you can only get $200 a day out of ATMs? They’ll get a couple of different cards and they’ll go to different ATMs.”
Certainly, he allows, “the opportunities to gamble have now vastly increased. That’s got to tell you, if you do the maths, there’s going to be more issues in relation to problem gamblers”.
But his club must contribute to that problem, operating many dozens of glittering poker machines. Aren’t his two roles in conflict? Sobb shrugs at the suggestion. “There are going to be sceptics out there who say it’s a conflict,” he says. “What can I do about that?”
ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2007, in an interview on the election campaign trail, then-Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd spoke candidly about Australian state governments’ unique embrace of the pokies.
“I hate poker machines,” he told The Australian newspaper, “and I know something of their impact on families.”
He signalled federal intervention on the issue. “It’s of sufficient concern to me for this not to just drop off the radar,” he said.
Rudd's comments, and the mood for change that accompanied Labor’s election that November, seemed to prompt a review of the place of gambling machines in Australian life. Despite its small population, Australia has the fifth-largest number of poker machines of any country in the world, and Australians lose more money per capita on gambling than any other country.
Depending on whose estimate you use, something between 22 and 60 percent of gambling-machine revenue is drawn from problem gamblers, and state governments (not including Western Australia, where poker machines are banned outside Crown’s Burswood Casino) have come to rely on gambling losses for some 10 per cent of their annual revenue.
In his first go-round as Prime Minister, Rudd enlisted World Vision chief and long-time anti-pokies activist Tim Costello to advise him on the issue. The Leader of the Liberal-National Coalition Government at the time, Brendan Nelson, expressed his own concerns about poker machines, and called for a Productivity Commission report into the industry. Even the clubs’ lobby group, Clubs Australia, joined the chorus for a national inquiry, saying it welcomed the opportunity to show the industry's progress in warding gambling addicts away from venues. In October 2008, Prime Minister Rudd asked the Productivity Commission to begin its work, and provide figures and recommendations upon which the government could base its policy agenda.
Half a decade on, it all seems so naive: as if the barrier to reforming Australia’s multi-billion dollar poker-machine industry could merely have been a dearth of reliable, rigorous research. The Commission’s report, released in 2010, found that, overall, gambling rates had declined, but there was no evidence that problem gamblers were contributing any less to the industry’s bottom line than they were 10 years earlier.
A slew of harm-minimisation measures was recommended. Poker machines should be fitted with pre-commitment technology, allowing punters to nominate how much they’d lose in a single session, the commission said, and the maximum value of bets should be capped at $1. These measures found their way into a reform package championed by Independent Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie.
But the “Wilkie Reforms” withered in the face of a multi-million dollar campaign run against them by Clubs Australia. On billboards targeted at marginal Labor MPs, in television spots, and public rallies, the industry cast the measures as “un-Australian”, and warned that they would send pubs and clubs broke. Behind the scenes, the Australian Electoral Commission recorded a dramatic spike in political donations from the pub and club lobbies to the major parties, principally to the Coalition.
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2013年8月27日星期二
Joanne and Stephen Murray moved
Retirement is no longer about trading in one’s career for a rocker in front of the TV. For many of the retirees who move to the Lowcountry, retirement is another chapter in their lives that began innocently enough with a vacation to the Hilton Head area.
Joanne and Stephen Murray moved from Fort Washington, Pa., just outside of Philadelphia, to Sun City Hilton Head in October 2011, but were part-timers since 2006. Joanne was finance director for a dance school and Stephen retired as a conductor for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA).
“We started to vacation in Hilton Head and wanted to move to warmer climates when we retired,” said Joanne. “It made perfect sense to choose a retirement community here. And because we’d been here so much, we felt like we were home when we got here.”
With more than 14,000 residents and dozens of groups to join, it’s like a small town, one that the Murrays enjoy.
“What I like about Sun City is the resort atmosphere when you drive through the front gate,” said Joanne. “You feel like you’re still on vacation even though you’ve come home. There is so much friendliness. I love the fact they have a community theatre and a really good one. And everyone has made us feel welcome quickly.”
The Cypress, with nearly 430 residents, and TidePointe, with about 300 residents, are much more intimate, offering first-class independent living along with different levels of continuing care, nursing care and assisted living on the grounds.
Tom and Beverly Conner kept their options open before finally moving into The Cypress. They were in the market for a move and looked around while en route to visit his brother in Vero Beach, Fla. On the way back from Florida, they looked in The Crescent in Bluffton and bought a house right away. That was in 2001. In November 2012, the Conners moved to The Cypress.
“We picked up our life in Bluffton, moved it down to Hilton Head and now we are just 14 miles closer to everything we do,” said Tom.
Tom, a former school superintendent in Washington, Pa., is part of the Center for Medical Excellence, one of the newest businesses accepted into the incubator at the Don Ryan Center for Innovation. He is also a volunteer at the Allendale prison where he takes his Labrador therapy dog. Beverly, a former program officer for Alcoa Foundation, participates in her church activities. Both are active in the annual Hilton Head Motoring Festival & Concours d’Elegance.
“We were really looking down the road as we get older. We were looking at when’s too early, when’s too late? You really have to be able to walk in here in order to live here,” Tom said. “It’s comfortable here, the service here is great. We have really enjoyed it, our health is good, and now Bev’s sister is moving into the house next to us. We have never looked back.”
Mary Moser lives at The Seabrook of Hilton Head, a non-profit, independent living retirement community with more than 200 residents. The Seabrook’s 21-acre campus includes the Fraser Health Center, a 33-private bed skilled nursing facility.
Originally from Reston, Va., Mary’s husband was career civil service and golf was his passion.
“In 1980 we came to Hilton Head for a 3-day/2-night golf package and went home proud owners of a lot in Hilton Head Plantation,” Moser said. “We were captivated by the island’s natural beauty and couldn’t wait to make it home.” After several years in a nice condo area after her husband died, Moser knew it was time to move. She moved to The Seabrook, which is nestled in the natural beauty of a peaceful maritime forest with easy access to the beach.
“A number of my friends live at The Seabrook and I’ve found it to have a small-town feel, where people are welcoming and friendly,” Moser said. “It’s the perfect place to call home.”
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Joanne and Stephen Murray moved from Fort Washington, Pa., just outside of Philadelphia, to Sun City Hilton Head in October 2011, but were part-timers since 2006. Joanne was finance director for a dance school and Stephen retired as a conductor for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA).
“We started to vacation in Hilton Head and wanted to move to warmer climates when we retired,” said Joanne. “It made perfect sense to choose a retirement community here. And because we’d been here so much, we felt like we were home when we got here.”
With more than 14,000 residents and dozens of groups to join, it’s like a small town, one that the Murrays enjoy.
“What I like about Sun City is the resort atmosphere when you drive through the front gate,” said Joanne. “You feel like you’re still on vacation even though you’ve come home. There is so much friendliness. I love the fact they have a community theatre and a really good one. And everyone has made us feel welcome quickly.”
The Cypress, with nearly 430 residents, and TidePointe, with about 300 residents, are much more intimate, offering first-class independent living along with different levels of continuing care, nursing care and assisted living on the grounds.
Tom and Beverly Conner kept their options open before finally moving into The Cypress. They were in the market for a move and looked around while en route to visit his brother in Vero Beach, Fla. On the way back from Florida, they looked in The Crescent in Bluffton and bought a house right away. That was in 2001. In November 2012, the Conners moved to The Cypress.
“We picked up our life in Bluffton, moved it down to Hilton Head and now we are just 14 miles closer to everything we do,” said Tom.
Tom, a former school superintendent in Washington, Pa., is part of the Center for Medical Excellence, one of the newest businesses accepted into the incubator at the Don Ryan Center for Innovation. He is also a volunteer at the Allendale prison where he takes his Labrador therapy dog. Beverly, a former program officer for Alcoa Foundation, participates in her church activities. Both are active in the annual Hilton Head Motoring Festival & Concours d’Elegance.
“We were really looking down the road as we get older. We were looking at when’s too early, when’s too late? You really have to be able to walk in here in order to live here,” Tom said. “It’s comfortable here, the service here is great. We have really enjoyed it, our health is good, and now Bev’s sister is moving into the house next to us. We have never looked back.”
Mary Moser lives at The Seabrook of Hilton Head, a non-profit, independent living retirement community with more than 200 residents. The Seabrook’s 21-acre campus includes the Fraser Health Center, a 33-private bed skilled nursing facility.
Originally from Reston, Va., Mary’s husband was career civil service and golf was his passion.
“In 1980 we came to Hilton Head for a 3-day/2-night golf package and went home proud owners of a lot in Hilton Head Plantation,” Moser said. “We were captivated by the island’s natural beauty and couldn’t wait to make it home.” After several years in a nice condo area after her husband died, Moser knew it was time to move. She moved to The Seabrook, which is nestled in the natural beauty of a peaceful maritime forest with easy access to the beach.
“A number of my friends live at The Seabrook and I’ve found it to have a small-town feel, where people are welcoming and friendly,” Moser said. “It’s the perfect place to call home.”
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Killer is Dead
From the imagination of the developer Goichi Suda, better known as SUDA 51 and CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture – Killer is Dead is the most insane assassination game that could ever be produced, so much so that after playing the first few chapters you will need to take a long rest to get over it and soak up the inexplicable sights to behold! I could describe it as an eccentric take on a James Bond movie where the environments feel like a collection of retro olden day vampire scenes to which the madness then just continues to develop further the more you dive into the alien-futuristic-criminal-underworld. This still does not put into words the oddity of the character artwork and level design that had me convinced I was in a trance!
In simple terms, Killer is Dead is a unique hack and slash in the third person view, but the complexity of the story unravels over the course of twelve very different missions and additional side missions. Throughout the game you are an assassin named Mondo, the main protagonist who takes on a different contract with each mission to assassinate an evil force, cyborg or some other part human mechanical being for a large cash sum. He does have a rather dumb female assistant too, not that it’s a 2 player experience because it is not, but this dumb sidekick appears in cuts scenes and voice overs – however both character are fearless with clearly a strong stomach for the on-going gore-fest of each mission! It will take you a few chapters to get to grips with the gameplay experience because there is nothing quite like it for a multifaceted view on a world where your income is determined by your successful killing sprees and your whole life a continuous spiraling hallucinating mind-fuck! If you’re familiar with anything from SUDA 51 you’ll know to expect the unexpected and thinking outside the box really means a million miles away from any logical perception. This is just plain weird!
Each mission within the game is organised by your employers, Bryan Execution Firm, run by – (you guessed it) a Bryan, and he himself is a powerful cyborg who commands you into this introspective nightmare world of danger. On your journey to complete what you are paid to do – KILL – you also start to learn a few home truths and discoveries of your past revealed through cut scenes and dreamlike gameplay. Every mission is a separate chapter of the game and you are graded and scored by time of completion, number of collectables found, and how many kills and so on. Before you start you are given a brief sheet of information detailing your target and a short cut scene will update you on the story within that mission. The whole presentation style is that of short series of movies, an adventure broken down into shorts with gameplay that is arcade style. Some chapters last only minutes where as others can last for hours depending upon your retries due to the difficult nature of your targets – some feel as though they are born invincible and might never go down. Or, you just have to rethink your strategy for another attempt. On the whole, it is a game about just killing as much as you can with a bloody great Katana and a cybernetic left arm that can be tooled up for drilling, shooting and aiming with a variety of sub weapons. The gameplay is nothing you haven’t done before with a similar style to Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, only with more violence and plenty of blood!
Attacking your enemies or well, job lots could be a better description – is all about taking a slash; lunging forward with the Katana and perfectly timing your strikes whilst using Guard and Dodge to defend yourself. You can heal yourself with the blood of others when health is running low and you will often find objects that will aid your survival and mission requirements by examining them at close inspection. The action is fast paced and keeps you on your toes with a disposal of character upgrades to your Attack and Skills at your disposal too. There are Special Skills to unlock that will improve your gameplay style and different button combo’s to present your deathly strike to the enemy. However, I feel that for the most part you will just button mash your way through it because you will not have the time to think about what buttons to press other than one to just kill the fuckers!
This really is a unique game that will appeal to SUDA 51 fans, those who have likely witnessed other mad plots such as Lollipop Chainsaw, and it is in the midst of that eccentricity that makes it work for you, where the curiosity of always wanting to know what screwed up psychological chapter comes next, and how does this story unfold, or where or when will this journey end for the overworked assassin that is Mondo? If ever there was a leaderboard for being a cold hearted pathological murderer he’d top it…but then, even more insanity comes with the missions where you must blatantly stare at the tits of women at bars, sitting romantically outdoors and showering them with expensive gifts to win their affection. These Gigolo missions form some of the most embarrassing parts of the game which neither add substance or real relevance but you will grab yourself a few Achievements for taking part. If anything it shows that Mondo is a red blooded male who is really needs some form of sexual activity badly. I didn’t find any kind of romance in these missions; it was just a man after a very expensive night of passion.
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In simple terms, Killer is Dead is a unique hack and slash in the third person view, but the complexity of the story unravels over the course of twelve very different missions and additional side missions. Throughout the game you are an assassin named Mondo, the main protagonist who takes on a different contract with each mission to assassinate an evil force, cyborg or some other part human mechanical being for a large cash sum. He does have a rather dumb female assistant too, not that it’s a 2 player experience because it is not, but this dumb sidekick appears in cuts scenes and voice overs – however both character are fearless with clearly a strong stomach for the on-going gore-fest of each mission! It will take you a few chapters to get to grips with the gameplay experience because there is nothing quite like it for a multifaceted view on a world where your income is determined by your successful killing sprees and your whole life a continuous spiraling hallucinating mind-fuck! If you’re familiar with anything from SUDA 51 you’ll know to expect the unexpected and thinking outside the box really means a million miles away from any logical perception. This is just plain weird!
Each mission within the game is organised by your employers, Bryan Execution Firm, run by – (you guessed it) a Bryan, and he himself is a powerful cyborg who commands you into this introspective nightmare world of danger. On your journey to complete what you are paid to do – KILL – you also start to learn a few home truths and discoveries of your past revealed through cut scenes and dreamlike gameplay. Every mission is a separate chapter of the game and you are graded and scored by time of completion, number of collectables found, and how many kills and so on. Before you start you are given a brief sheet of information detailing your target and a short cut scene will update you on the story within that mission. The whole presentation style is that of short series of movies, an adventure broken down into shorts with gameplay that is arcade style. Some chapters last only minutes where as others can last for hours depending upon your retries due to the difficult nature of your targets – some feel as though they are born invincible and might never go down. Or, you just have to rethink your strategy for another attempt. On the whole, it is a game about just killing as much as you can with a bloody great Katana and a cybernetic left arm that can be tooled up for drilling, shooting and aiming with a variety of sub weapons. The gameplay is nothing you haven’t done before with a similar style to Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, only with more violence and plenty of blood!
Attacking your enemies or well, job lots could be a better description – is all about taking a slash; lunging forward with the Katana and perfectly timing your strikes whilst using Guard and Dodge to defend yourself. You can heal yourself with the blood of others when health is running low and you will often find objects that will aid your survival and mission requirements by examining them at close inspection. The action is fast paced and keeps you on your toes with a disposal of character upgrades to your Attack and Skills at your disposal too. There are Special Skills to unlock that will improve your gameplay style and different button combo’s to present your deathly strike to the enemy. However, I feel that for the most part you will just button mash your way through it because you will not have the time to think about what buttons to press other than one to just kill the fuckers!
This really is a unique game that will appeal to SUDA 51 fans, those who have likely witnessed other mad plots such as Lollipop Chainsaw, and it is in the midst of that eccentricity that makes it work for you, where the curiosity of always wanting to know what screwed up psychological chapter comes next, and how does this story unfold, or where or when will this journey end for the overworked assassin that is Mondo? If ever there was a leaderboard for being a cold hearted pathological murderer he’d top it…but then, even more insanity comes with the missions where you must blatantly stare at the tits of women at bars, sitting romantically outdoors and showering them with expensive gifts to win their affection. These Gigolo missions form some of the most embarrassing parts of the game which neither add substance or real relevance but you will grab yourself a few Achievements for taking part. If anything it shows that Mondo is a red blooded male who is really needs some form of sexual activity badly. I didn’t find any kind of romance in these missions; it was just a man after a very expensive night of passion.
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2013年8月25日星期日
More Complex Than You’d Think
I expected two things out of Divekick: Diving and Kicking. In Divekick, the dive button dives (jumps) straight up, and the kick button will have your character spring back if you press it on the ground or kick in a forward moving fashion. A single hit would bring defeat to you or your opponent. This is all I knew before I started playing, and frankly, I was excited. I figured that if a game focused entirely around one attack, with characters given different angles and properties to play with, there would still be enough there to make for some interesting fights with friends.
It would remove a significant barrier to entry, allowing players to focus simply on their character’s fundamentals and learn how to deal with each opponent’s diving and kicking style. However, it turns out there’s a lot more to Divekick than I initially thought.
In addition to diving and kicking (which some characters need to charge or adjust their angle to do), each character has a couple of special abilities they can perform by pressing both buttons simultaneously. These range from simply building meter (which, when full, will activate the speed and jump-increasing Kickfactor) to a parry that will practically guarantee a headshot on any opponent if it blocks an incoming kick. By the way, a successful headshot will drain your opponent’s meter, make them jump lower and move slower for a short while, and forbid them from using any abilities, regardless of if they use meter or not, during that time.
On top of that, you need to keep the gems that you and your opponent select in mind, because a 10% boost to dive speed, kick speed, or meter gain is going to impact the way that they play, as should the one you pick. Not as simple as it first seemed, is it? Honestly, I felt a bit betrayed by Divekick at first. It seemed more complex than it needed to be, and I was frustrated by the fact that people were teleporting around and searching the ground and tossing projectiles like Phoenix Wright in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 looking for evidence.
However, once I played a few characters Story Modes (sadly, the only single-player option available in the game, which means that you can’t practice certain matchups against the computer unless you get to them somewhat at random), I started to get a feel for how everyone operated, and things that I once thought were chaotic and overly complex began to make sense.
For instance, Redacted is a basically a human sized wolverine who smokes cigars and stands and dive kicks a lot like Wolverine in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. She is obscenely fast, jumps and backjumps insanely high, and her kick is very shallow. Her ground special just has her growl and build meter for a while. At first, I didn’t think this made much sense, because her aerial special is just a short wall-cling, and that didn’t even require much meter usage… but then I hit Kickfactor and realized exactly how dangerous she could be. With Markman, I had a similar experience. His ground special has him search the ground for an item to build a “kickbox” with (think a Divekick two-button arcade stick).
When he doesn’t find one of the parts necessary for the kickbox, he just tosses it, creating an annoying obstacle in the middle of the battlefield. A vial of poison will drain whoever gets to close’s meter, a vial of glue will stick the person to the ground for a second, oil will add a bit of randomness to a player’s jumps and landings, springs will annoyingly have the player on top of them short hop in place until they kick off of it, and holes in the ground just drop a player perpetually from the floor through the ceiling until they kick away from it or it disappears. However, the fun begins when you complete the hitbox. His regular Divekick is kind of shallow and slow (unless you kick on just the right frame of the dive that speeds it up and surrounds it with lightning), so if you miss from a high angle, you basically sign your death warrant.
When the hitbox is complete, you’ve got a little bit of time where your specials are replaced with rising kicks which can be activated from the ground or the air. This means that you can start baiting an opponent into leaping above you mid-divekick, then use the rising kick to take them out as they try to land a headshot.
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It would remove a significant barrier to entry, allowing players to focus simply on their character’s fundamentals and learn how to deal with each opponent’s diving and kicking style. However, it turns out there’s a lot more to Divekick than I initially thought.
In addition to diving and kicking (which some characters need to charge or adjust their angle to do), each character has a couple of special abilities they can perform by pressing both buttons simultaneously. These range from simply building meter (which, when full, will activate the speed and jump-increasing Kickfactor) to a parry that will practically guarantee a headshot on any opponent if it blocks an incoming kick. By the way, a successful headshot will drain your opponent’s meter, make them jump lower and move slower for a short while, and forbid them from using any abilities, regardless of if they use meter or not, during that time.
On top of that, you need to keep the gems that you and your opponent select in mind, because a 10% boost to dive speed, kick speed, or meter gain is going to impact the way that they play, as should the one you pick. Not as simple as it first seemed, is it? Honestly, I felt a bit betrayed by Divekick at first. It seemed more complex than it needed to be, and I was frustrated by the fact that people were teleporting around and searching the ground and tossing projectiles like Phoenix Wright in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 looking for evidence.
However, once I played a few characters Story Modes (sadly, the only single-player option available in the game, which means that you can’t practice certain matchups against the computer unless you get to them somewhat at random), I started to get a feel for how everyone operated, and things that I once thought were chaotic and overly complex began to make sense.
For instance, Redacted is a basically a human sized wolverine who smokes cigars and stands and dive kicks a lot like Wolverine in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. She is obscenely fast, jumps and backjumps insanely high, and her kick is very shallow. Her ground special just has her growl and build meter for a while. At first, I didn’t think this made much sense, because her aerial special is just a short wall-cling, and that didn’t even require much meter usage… but then I hit Kickfactor and realized exactly how dangerous she could be. With Markman, I had a similar experience. His ground special has him search the ground for an item to build a “kickbox” with (think a Divekick two-button arcade stick).
When he doesn’t find one of the parts necessary for the kickbox, he just tosses it, creating an annoying obstacle in the middle of the battlefield. A vial of poison will drain whoever gets to close’s meter, a vial of glue will stick the person to the ground for a second, oil will add a bit of randomness to a player’s jumps and landings, springs will annoyingly have the player on top of them short hop in place until they kick off of it, and holes in the ground just drop a player perpetually from the floor through the ceiling until they kick away from it or it disappears. However, the fun begins when you complete the hitbox. His regular Divekick is kind of shallow and slow (unless you kick on just the right frame of the dive that speeds it up and surrounds it with lightning), so if you miss from a high angle, you basically sign your death warrant.
When the hitbox is complete, you’ve got a little bit of time where your specials are replaced with rising kicks which can be activated from the ground or the air. This means that you can start baiting an opponent into leaping above you mid-divekick, then use the rising kick to take them out as they try to land a headshot.
Welcome to www.happmart.com Web.If you love Arcade parts,welcome to contact us!
Chaos eventually erupted in the barnyard
Once upon a time, my kids had what was then considered a high-tech gizmo: one of those See ‘n Say toys, where you dial an image of a certain animal, such as a cow, pull a string, and out would come something along the lines of, “The cow says ‘moo.’” ?
Chaos eventually erupted in the barnyard after the toy developed a low-tech malfunction, resulting in chickens making “moo” sounds, cows making “baa” sounds ? and so forth.
We’ve come a long way since then, perhaps too long a way. Witness complaints by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood over claims that certain mobile apps can help babies learn.
As recently reported by ?The Associated Press, this is the same group that mobilized against those “Baby Einstein” videos a few years ago, leading to nationwide consumer refunds. According to the AP, the American Academy of Pediatrics has also weighed in, discouraging any “screen time” for kids under 2.
If this includes smartphones, that battle is already lost. Last winter, my youngest grandson, then 23 months old, could grab his mother’s phone, speed dial his other grandmother in Colorado, then carry on a somewhat disjointed conversation of sighs, grunts? and an occasional recognizable word. Meanwhile, his older brother, closing in on age 4, regards the home computer as just another fun device among his arsenal of toys.
None of this, of course, was available when my own kids were little. The best toys my son ever had were Legos, which he fashioned into every sort of object you could imagine, from trucks to fire stations to rocket ships. Alas, even good old Lego has now gone digital, allowing kids to design hundreds of virtual models without ever having to touch a real Lego.
As for my daughter, her favorite toy throughout her childhood was an old doll named “Baby,” tossed aside by an aunt who had no use for such creatures. I don’t know if our daughter took Baby on her honeymoon but it sure went with her when she moved out of the house.
Mr. Potato Head and an occasional Cootie — as in the game — were the only items I ever assembled as a kid, although my younger brother, who would go on to become a civil engineer, did have an Erector set.
Then, as now, it can be argued that the best toy a kid can have is not the toy but the cardboard box it came in. Never more has that been proven than with the case of Caine Monroy, who at age 9 started building an arcade out of discarded cardboard in his dad’s East L.A. used auto parts store.
As recently outlined in myriad national news reports, young Caine had few visitors to his arcade that summer of 2011 until a filmmaker by the name of Nirvan Mullick wandered in looking for a used door handle. Not long after, Mullick made a film about the arcade and also organized a flash mob of customers.
Naturally, the thing went viral, raising more than $225,000 in college scholarship money for Caine. More importantly, Caine’s arcade has jumpstarted a wave of cardboard creativity through the non-profit Imagination Foundation, which inspires kids around the world to “think outside the box.”
Last year kids from 41 countries participated in the foundation’s “cardboard challenge,” churning out everything from football tables to robots and claw machines.
“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” Caine recently told NBC News. “All you need is cardboard and your imagination.”
Welcome to www.happmart.com Web.If you love Game machines,welcome to contact us!
Chaos eventually erupted in the barnyard after the toy developed a low-tech malfunction, resulting in chickens making “moo” sounds, cows making “baa” sounds ? and so forth.
We’ve come a long way since then, perhaps too long a way. Witness complaints by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood over claims that certain mobile apps can help babies learn.
As recently reported by ?The Associated Press, this is the same group that mobilized against those “Baby Einstein” videos a few years ago, leading to nationwide consumer refunds. According to the AP, the American Academy of Pediatrics has also weighed in, discouraging any “screen time” for kids under 2.
If this includes smartphones, that battle is already lost. Last winter, my youngest grandson, then 23 months old, could grab his mother’s phone, speed dial his other grandmother in Colorado, then carry on a somewhat disjointed conversation of sighs, grunts? and an occasional recognizable word. Meanwhile, his older brother, closing in on age 4, regards the home computer as just another fun device among his arsenal of toys.
None of this, of course, was available when my own kids were little. The best toys my son ever had were Legos, which he fashioned into every sort of object you could imagine, from trucks to fire stations to rocket ships. Alas, even good old Lego has now gone digital, allowing kids to design hundreds of virtual models without ever having to touch a real Lego.
As for my daughter, her favorite toy throughout her childhood was an old doll named “Baby,” tossed aside by an aunt who had no use for such creatures. I don’t know if our daughter took Baby on her honeymoon but it sure went with her when she moved out of the house.
Mr. Potato Head and an occasional Cootie — as in the game — were the only items I ever assembled as a kid, although my younger brother, who would go on to become a civil engineer, did have an Erector set.
Then, as now, it can be argued that the best toy a kid can have is not the toy but the cardboard box it came in. Never more has that been proven than with the case of Caine Monroy, who at age 9 started building an arcade out of discarded cardboard in his dad’s East L.A. used auto parts store.
As recently outlined in myriad national news reports, young Caine had few visitors to his arcade that summer of 2011 until a filmmaker by the name of Nirvan Mullick wandered in looking for a used door handle. Not long after, Mullick made a film about the arcade and also organized a flash mob of customers.
Naturally, the thing went viral, raising more than $225,000 in college scholarship money for Caine. More importantly, Caine’s arcade has jumpstarted a wave of cardboard creativity through the non-profit Imagination Foundation, which inspires kids around the world to “think outside the box.”
Last year kids from 41 countries participated in the foundation’s “cardboard challenge,” churning out everything from football tables to robots and claw machines.
“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” Caine recently told NBC News. “All you need is cardboard and your imagination.”
Welcome to www.happmart.com Web.If you love Game machines,welcome to contact us!
2013年8月20日星期二
Bomb goes off in Midsayap
An improvised explosive device went off in Barangay Nes, Midsayap, North Cotabato around 9 p.m. Sunday, the second blast that hit the town this month, police said.
No one was injured or killed in the blast, the police said.
Midsayap police chief Supt. Reinante Delos Santos, in a phone interview, said the bomb exploded in front of a sari-sari store owned by Jeffrey Fontanilla, damaging its roof and concrete wall.
Police investigation showed that before the explosion two unidentified men bought cigarettes and candies at the store and left on board a motorcycle towards the national highway.
The Army’s 66th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Division said the bomb was made of a 60 mm mortar and a mobile phone was used as the triggering device.
No one has claimed responsibility for the incident.
On August 7, 2013, a bomb also exploded in front of a pawnshop in Midsayap. No one was injured in the blast.
Aside from the latest blast in Midsayap, at least five other explosions have rocked parts of Mindanao since late last month.
Eight persons were killed and 46 others were injured in the Cagayan de Oro City blast in a resto-bar in Rosario Arcade, Limketkai Center on July 26.
Another eight people were killed and 30 were injured in Cotabato City on August 5 in a bombing that apparently targeted city administrator Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi.
Seven soldiers were injured in Shariff Saydona Mustapha town in Maguindanao on August 7. There were no reported casualties in the explosion of improvised bombs in Midsayap, North Cotabato and Datu Piang in Maguindanao on August 7.
Fast Towards Heaven
While “Fast Towards Heaven” is definitely the most musically-upbeat tune on the EP, it focuses lyrically on a hard-to-swallow realization: that there are some old attachments that you can never fully move on from, as hard as you might try – that first love that you never really forgot; that grudge you never gave up; the parts of your old teenage self that you cover up like a shameful bruise. It’s those things you’re most afraid of revealing to other people that often say much more about you than anything you might willingly tell. “Fast Towards Heaven” is about being, unwittingly and unwillingly, under the magnetic hold of those strong past affections and memories long after you thought they had vanished.
Safe
“Safe” is an elegy to a past self, to the teenage years when you shed previous versions of your identity with frightening frequency in an attempt to outrun the impending stasis of adulthood, as if once you leave high school you’ll harden into the person that you’ll have to be for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not. If you’re a bookish nerd one day, there’s little preventing you from reinventing yourself into something else the next. This is mostly just adolescent exploration without long-term consequence, and while most of those changes are harmless, some are not. “Safe” is a song about coming to painful grips with the things you’ve changed about yourself that you can’t erase.
Please visit his website at www.happmart.com.
No one was injured or killed in the blast, the police said.
Midsayap police chief Supt. Reinante Delos Santos, in a phone interview, said the bomb exploded in front of a sari-sari store owned by Jeffrey Fontanilla, damaging its roof and concrete wall.
Police investigation showed that before the explosion two unidentified men bought cigarettes and candies at the store and left on board a motorcycle towards the national highway.
The Army’s 66th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Division said the bomb was made of a 60 mm mortar and a mobile phone was used as the triggering device.
No one has claimed responsibility for the incident.
On August 7, 2013, a bomb also exploded in front of a pawnshop in Midsayap. No one was injured in the blast.
Aside from the latest blast in Midsayap, at least five other explosions have rocked parts of Mindanao since late last month.
Eight persons were killed and 46 others were injured in the Cagayan de Oro City blast in a resto-bar in Rosario Arcade, Limketkai Center on July 26.
Another eight people were killed and 30 were injured in Cotabato City on August 5 in a bombing that apparently targeted city administrator Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi.
Seven soldiers were injured in Shariff Saydona Mustapha town in Maguindanao on August 7. There were no reported casualties in the explosion of improvised bombs in Midsayap, North Cotabato and Datu Piang in Maguindanao on August 7.
Fast Towards Heaven
While “Fast Towards Heaven” is definitely the most musically-upbeat tune on the EP, it focuses lyrically on a hard-to-swallow realization: that there are some old attachments that you can never fully move on from, as hard as you might try – that first love that you never really forgot; that grudge you never gave up; the parts of your old teenage self that you cover up like a shameful bruise. It’s those things you’re most afraid of revealing to other people that often say much more about you than anything you might willingly tell. “Fast Towards Heaven” is about being, unwittingly and unwillingly, under the magnetic hold of those strong past affections and memories long after you thought they had vanished.
Safe
“Safe” is an elegy to a past self, to the teenage years when you shed previous versions of your identity with frightening frequency in an attempt to outrun the impending stasis of adulthood, as if once you leave high school you’ll harden into the person that you’ll have to be for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not. If you’re a bookish nerd one day, there’s little preventing you from reinventing yourself into something else the next. This is mostly just adolescent exploration without long-term consequence, and while most of those changes are harmless, some are not. “Safe” is a song about coming to painful grips with the things you’ve changed about yourself that you can’t erase.
Please visit his website at www.happmart.com.
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