video game culture

Hip-Hop Week | Just Blaze and the Instrumental Music of NBA Street Vol. 2

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Hip-Hop Week continues! Let’s take to the streets where Just Blaze provided a soundtrack to streetball that still bangs today!

NBA Street Vol. 2 is a high watermark for arcade sports games. It found a brilliant balance between accessibility, depth, and swag for days. Though it’s been a while since I played it, one of the things that always stuck with me is its music. Look past the licensed tracks and you’ll find a killer selection of beats by Just Blaze, who was one of the hottest producers at the time, and still one of my faves to this day.

Here’s a pair of tracks that really stand out to me, but you should check out the whole soundtrack when you get a chance!

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Hip-Hop Week | Def Jam Rapstar and My Hype Man Dreams

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Hip-Hop Week continues on In Third Person! From Flava Flav to Migos, the hype man is an underrated role in a rapper’s crew. This is the story of how I got to live out my hype man dreams.

Like normal fans of hip-hop music, I’ve had dreams of being a rapper, producer, DJ, and breakdancer. But there’s another occupation in the world of hip-hop that I’ve always wanted to be that weirds people out every time I share this with them.

I’ve always wanted to be a hype man.

I’ve wanted to be the Flava Flav yelling, “********** you and John Wayne!”. Or in 90s terms, I wanted to be Puff Daddy, standing behind the Notorious B.I.G., punctuating his lines with chants of, “Whoo!” or, “Uh huh, yeah.” Or in modern times, I wanted to be one of the guys in Migos screaming, “Skrrt!”. My fascination with this role manifests itself in the car every time I drive. Sometimes, instead of singing or rapping along to a song, I’ll just ad lib over it. Even for songs that don’t make sense, I’ll do it. That scene in Carpool Karaoke where Migos is ad libbing over “Sweet Caroline”? That’s been my life for years, and I apologize to my wife for subjecting her to this every day.

A few years ago, during a night in with friends, I got to share my hype man talents to the world thanks to Def Jam Rapstar.

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Hip-Hop Week | “Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis”: The Most Iconic Video Game Reference in Hip-Hop History

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Hip-Hop Week officially begins on In Third Person! Of course we had to start with the N-O, T-O, R-I, O, U-S!

On August 9th, 1994, Christopher Wallace released “Juicy”, the first single from his forthcoming debut album Ready to Die. The song would peak at #1 on the Billboard charts and is still cited as one of the greatest hip-hop songs of all-time.

Though it may not have been the first time video games and hip-hop connected – and it certainly wouldn’t be the last – the Notorious B.I.G. yelled out what would become the most iconic video game reference in hip-hop, and quite possibly all of music.

“Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis/When I was dead broke man, I couldn’t picture this”
– Notorious B.I.G., “Juicy”

What is it about this line that continues to resonate today? Being associated with an all-time great rap song by an all-time great rapper goes a long way, but I think there’s a bit more to it than that.

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Seeing Another Side of the Battle Royale Genre Through Tetris 99

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Part of my ambivalence towards the battle royale genre of games thus far is that I’m not particularly good at shooters. My aim has never been that sharp. In the case of Fortnite, I can’t wrap my head around the physical execution required to build walls and ramps at a competitive speed. Because of my inability to perform at a high level in those games, I felt like prey, just waiting for a hunter to gun me down. Regardless of how high I finish on the scoreboard, it almost always feels like a fraudulent result.

I may suck with a digital gun, but I can stack blocks with the best of them. Being able to leverage a lifetime of Tetris knowledge and skills in Tetris 99 has opened my mind to a new perspective on the genre.

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Celebrating Hip-Hop Week at In Third Person!

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“It was all a dream! I used to read [Gamepro] magazine!”

My love of video games is well-documented here on In Third Person. However, another one of my passions is hip-hop music. As a kid, I fell in love with the boom bap, studied the older records before my time, and have kept a close ear to where it’s gone ever since. For a time, I was even making my own beats and I dabbled in rapping for a bit, though the less said about my rapping, the better.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll drop one post per day covering different places where my love of video games collides with my love of hip-hop. Until then, pack your cardboard, rehearse your pre-written raps to make sure they sound like freestyles, and come back tomorrow for the boom bap!

We Received a Medal for Our Extra Life Efforts!

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Extra Life 2018 has come and gone, but the story is’t quite over just yet. As part of signing up as an Extra Life Platinum member and raising as much as we did for the Children’s Miracle Network of Hospitals, we unlocked the silver medal!

It’s a wonderful symbol of everything great that came out that experience! To top it off, I got it engraved with each team member’s first initial to make sure the whole team was represented on this memento. It means so much more with this added touch!

Earlier this week, I took the time to mount it on my wall. Now every time I stream, you can see the medal in the back to commemorate the hard work, great times, and positive impact we made on the world as a team!

One more time, the thank you list! It’s admittedly a copy/paste with some slight edits, but it’s still relevant and still means just as much!

  • Thank you to all of the donors whose generosity will help improve the lives of patients and staff at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto!
  • Thank you to my wife and Executive Producer of the marathon, Steff. She helped with the planning of virtually every aspect of this marathon, including all of the work behind the scenes to ensure that everyone was comfortable throughout this insane journey.
  • Thank you to my cousin Adrienne for lending us her photography lights and backdrop.
  • Thank you to the team! Randy, Jenna, Mat, Jon, Jason, Laura, Kris, Rachel, Michelle, Jascha, Janis, and Dusty. You’re all rock stars and your time and effort towards supporting the cause was (and still is) greatly appreciated! Couldn’t have done this without you.
  • Thank you to everyone who tuned in! We hope that we put on a great show for you and your support helped us get through this difficult-but-fun marathon!

This was an amazing experience and I can’t wait to pick up where we left off for the 2019 campaign!

What I Learned in a Marriage Course That I Try to Apply to My Video Game Content Approach

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Before my wife and I walked down the aisle and exchanged I do’s, we took part in a marriage course. As members of the Catholic church, completing the course is a requirement. Though the thought of doing this weekend-long course sounded as fun as watching paint dry, it ended up being a really positive experience that taught us a lot.

One particular piece of advice that came out of it really hit home. Been trying to incorporate this into my day-to-day interactions with others ever since. Without realizing it, it’s also impacted my voice as a gaming content creator.

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Metroid Prime and Console First-Person Shooter Controls Before The Advent of Dual Analog

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Once upon a time, dual analog controls for first-person shooters wasn’t a thing. Even in an era where we had dual-analog controllers, it would take a number of years before developers would come up with that scheme and make it the standard. Going back recently to play Metroid Prime on the GameCube, its lack of dual-analog control has proven to be really jarring.

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Join TWOTALL4UFOOL, Our View Gaming, and I for Episode 23 of the Game ‘N Watch Podcast

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The Game N’ Watch Podcast is run by TWOTALL4UFOOL and Our View Gaming. This week, they invited me on to talk about games with them! Some of the topics we discussed include the ridiculous amount of money PlayStation Network generated in 2018, how Xbox Live is “sort of” coming to the Nintendo Switch and other non-Microsoft platforms, and the news of Nintendo having 8 million subscribers so far for its online service.

Head over to PodBean to listen to Episode 23 of the Game N’ Watch Podcast!

Thank you Justin and Fines for having me! Make sure you give the show a listen and then thank them by subscribing to their show on whatever platform you use for podcasts!

Podbean

iTunes

Google Play

Stitcher

Spotify

Behind the Scenes of Streaming with Friends

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The process of streaming is generally a solitary experience in front of the webcam. You get your game feed and one webcam feed with the streamer playing the game. From there, you play the game while engaging with the chat as best you can. I’ve grown accustomed to that process and enjoy it. There’s something cool about being able to have these quasi-direct conversations with others in the chat that you’d never have otherwise. However, there’s a magic that happens when you bring multiple people together face-to-face, or at least voice-to-voice. As if making a regular stream wasn’t hard enough, it’s even more difficult to put multiple people from different places in the same window.

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