Just when I think I can catch up with my university work it gets ever harder more time consuming (think 3000 word research paper).

Never the less there is an HPAW episode in planning and finally Dante the Jedi and myself have completed the long needed About Us page. That’s right new viewers you now can get an idea of what your about to watch before you watch it!

The final About Us page was inspired by the winners of our About Us page forum contest. The winners were Dudeawesome1000 and Death Bringer. If you both could private message me on the forums you can collect your prize.

Well the long awaited commentary video on our latest tournament, Super Smash Bros. Brawl is finally here and viewable by the masses.

Teclis, Biske, Nw Striker and Kaisuke join me as we watch and commentate on all the matches of the recent tournament. There are two parts to this, with the first part covering rounds 1 and 2 and the second part covering the quarter-finals, semi-finals and the finals of the tournament.

Download via Bittorrent

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (220.0MB)

Part 1:
[media id=115 width=565 height=318]

Part 2:
[media id=116 width=565 height=318]

I think it is only fair to give you guys an update on the current status of HPAW.

At the start of September Teclis and I (Mempf) have started University, WorldGone Awry is completing another year of school here and Nw Striker is working full time.

Because of this and mainly for this month we may not be on schedule (don’t expect to much this month). We hope to get things up and running again by October when I can better balance school and my other activites such as HPAW. We will hopefully NOT be ending HPAW come 2009 which should make most of you very happy.

That said hopefully we will finish the SSBB tournament this weekend and film it within a week of that.

Thank you all for your understanding and continued support. And to Blitz there are no hard feelings from the HPAW cast.

Oh one last thing, entries for the About Us page will end this weekend so get them in ASAP (note: there may be multiple winners or partial winners and the final about us page will likely be a mega version of the best of the best.)

HPAW is very against DRM and I hate to see a good game ruined by bad company practices but that is exactly what has happened yet again with EA (anyone see a pattern?). Spore has the horrid DRM “protection”

If you have been wondering whether or not to get this game here is something to likely make up your mind.

So what are the people complaining about? Taking a look at the review Amazon tagged as “the most helpful critical review,” it’s pretty clear. “First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations,” the disgruntled user wrote. “If you reach that limit, then you’ll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That’s not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached…”

Complete story at ars technica.

This same thing happened with Bioshock for the PC but 2K Games later removed the DRM. DRM does not prevent piracy, it forces people into it and thats just not right.

UPDATE: Sign up is now closed, tournament will begin tomorrow in the afternoon.

Welcome to HPAW’s second official tournament featuring Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Nintendo Wii!

Tournament will be open to 32 people on a first come first serve basis. Sign Up is now open so sign up now!

Matches will be 1 vs 1 and winner moves on.

The way this tournament is being done is all in order to combat lag and to make this as convenient for us all. Unlike most tournaments this one will take place over the course of a week, please read on for more information.

Tournament is open to all: US, Canada, UK, even Iceland. Just register for an account on our forums if you don’t have an account yet. If there is enough interest I may extend this tournament to 64 people.

GameVee has me quite impressed so far. Great find by Sarge117.

As an experiment for a potential new way to release marathons (and maybe episodes) I have made the entire 52 parts of the Kingdom Hearts 2 Marathon available for download for the first time. The files are all in their original WMV quality.

How do I get it you ask? Bittorrent. To be able to download this and future releases you will need to have a bittorrent client. Don’t worry it’s not as complicated as it may seem.

HPAW recommends µTorrent for Windows and Transmission for all other platforms (Mac/Linux). For guides on how to use bittorrent please click here.

Direct Link to Kingdom Hearts 2 Marathon Torrent File

So please download, test and enjoy one of the first and best HPAW marathons.

UPDATE: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Konami Digital Entertainment Co. Ltd.” Thats right it has finally happened YouTube has removed Part 16 of the Metal Gear Solid 4 Marathon. It seems the rest of the marathon is still there. Part 16 will be available only directly from the HPAW servers.

The entirety of the Metal Gear Solid 4 Marathon is now fully uploaded and viewable.

Today is our second birthday and we originally had planned on filming the MGS4 marathon today; however, we have had to delay it to June 21st. More details will be coming later this week.

Oh and no cut scenes will not be skipped.

The first project to be returned to the server is the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Marathon.

All 28 parts have been returned to the Legend of Zelda: TP Marathon page in their original WMV forms.

I am aware that you guys want the official episodes to return as well (see poll below) so that will be my next project and hopefully will be started soon.