Cee Lo — Nicest Celebrity Alive … Possibly

Cee Lo
Nicest. Celebrity. Alive.
... Possibly

And now ... here's a video that will put you in a good mood.

It's nothing spectacular ... just Cee Lo being his usual super nice guy self in New York ... chatting with fans, posing for a pic with a little girl ... and even singing a part of his song, "Crazy."

We don't know him personally ...  but we've just shot him a bunch of times over the years ... and he ALWAYS seems like the nicest guy in town.

Just figured we'd share.

Man Didn’t Want To Pay CHILD SUPPORT . . . So He BURNED His One Year Old Son . . . ALIVE!

Yesterday police took into custody 29 year old Thomas Olivas. Texas police tell us that Thomas is a bitter ex-boyfriend who stabbed the mother of his child to death last year and left their one-year-old son to be burned alive with her body.

The animal has been on the run ever since. But yesterday, US Marshalls arrested him at a sports bar – as he ENJOYED a football game.

Here’s how the UKs Daily Mail is reporting it:

The bodies of Mechelle Gandy and her one-year-old son Asher were found in their smoldering apartment in Arlington on March 20, 2011.

Officials say that Miss Gandy had filed for child support from Olivas before she was killed, according to Dallas News. ‘It’s fair to say detectives think this may have played a factor in it,’ Arlington police spokeswoman Tiara Ellis Richard said. ‘But we don’t know if it’s the only reason.’

In March of 2011, her body was pulled out of her burning apartment on President’s Corner Drive where she lived alone with her son.

At the time, a neighbor said that he heard tires squealing before the fire broke out. Her body was found to have multiple stab wounds while Asher died of burns. The crime took place in TEXAS . . . so the MONSTER is likely to get the death penalty!!!

Dead or Alive 5 Gets Serious

Hello everyone. My name is Vince and I have a confession to make: I consider myself a hardcore fighting game fanatic and I've always liked Dead or Alive more than Tekken.

There, I said it! I watch streams of professional fighting game tournaments like a junkie, I travel to Vegas annually for Evo, and I pore over frame data like a history buff parsing the Dead Sea Scrolls. And yet, despite all this, I like the series where they “kick high” more than the one with the 10-hit-long combo strings and a move list that looks like the unabridged version of War and Peace. Given my MO this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but hey, fun works in mysterious ways.

Gen Fu says to Pai, "Eat some floor. It's high in fiber."

Now, I would never try to argue that DOA is deeper or more competitively viable than its iron-fisted cousin, but its fluidity, speed, and responsive controls have always made it my 3D fighter of choice. That being said, a lot's changed in the world of fighting games since the last installment of the series. The genre has enjoyed something of a second golden age over the last few years, and much of it has to do with the thriving competitive scene, which generates a metric ton of excitement and exposure for the games embraced by it. Back when most players were satisfied with simply mashing all the buttons and seeing what happened, Dead or Alive was entertaining enough. But has it evolved sufficiently to give a more discerning fanbase what it's come to crave – and even expect?

If near-final version of Dead or Alive 5 I've been playing is any indication, I'd say it has. Team Ninja seems to really want players to take its game more seriously than they have in the past, and they've made a bevy of key changes and additions to that end. The most important of these are present in the combat system itself, where two new types of moves have changed the overall power balance significantly, and for the better.

Girls are so much nicer to each other than guys are.

The first is the Critical Burst, which on its own seems like pretty much any other punch or kick, except for one unique feature. Those familiar with the series know that even once stunned, an opponent can attempt several counter holds to escape, making it hard for strike-based characters to get solid damage. But if you can land just a couple of solid hits while your opponent is still stunned, hitting them with your Critical Burst puts them in a stun state that cannot be escaped in any way, opening up the door for big juggles and combos. Counter hold mashers, you've been put on notice.

The other big addition is the new Power Blow, which you gain access to once you reach 50% life. The move comes out slow since it needs to be charged, but if it lands, you get big damage and the ability to choose what direction your hapless foe flies in. Even if guarded, it staggers your victim, giving you the initiative. You can even cancel out of the charge with a sidestep, leading to potential counterattacks. Best of all, they come out just fast enough to be tacked on after a Critical Burst stun. Combined with the tighter timing required for counter holds, these new features finally make offense feel as threatening as defense, which is a big step forward for the franchise.

'SMELL MY HANDS!"

As game changing as these mechanics are, the suite of features surrounding the combat has been beefed up nearly as much. Training mode has come a long way, with a fully programmable training dummy and real-time frame data for every move you make as you make it. Throw in the ability to save and upload replays of online and offline matches, hold spectatable training sessions and tournaments online, and track an exhaustive array of personal performance stats and you have a suite of tools that any competitive player would be happy with. It's impossible to say for sure just yet, but this may be the first Dead or Alive that people remember more for its competitive merits than its visual, uh...assets.

Vincent Ingenito is a freelance contributor for IGN. Follow him on Twitter if you dare.

FreakyForms Deluxe: Your Creations, Alive Review

The boxart for FreakyForms Deluxe depicts a scene that looks for all the world like an imaginative child has gone wild with the Fuzzy Felt. It’s absolutely ideal for a game that often feels like a digital recreation of the popular fabric toy; this is a title that allows you to create all sorts of weird and wonderful 2D creatures and play with them in simple, brightly-coloured worlds.

As you might expect from the title, this is an expanded version of the eShop favourite from developer Asobism Co., which boasts alumni from Chibi-Robo developer Skip among its staff. The original is an unlikely hit in some ways: a defiantly 2D game on a 3D console featuring unusual controls and rudimentary mechanics doesn’t seem like an obvious seller, but it managed to win players over with its wonderfully intuitive yet flexible creative toolkit which allows you to build monsters – or Formees, as the game calls them – from a number of different parts. These can be resized and rotated and attached just about anywhere, and when you’ve given your creation a catchphrase and a voice, you can send them out into the world – or, indeed, those of other players via StreetPass or unique QR codes.

As a game, there’s nothing much to FreakyForms: for the most part it’s little more than a collection of fetch quests and races, the rewards for which are usually additional body parts, or coins to spend on further assets. The world expands the more Formees you build, but while the backgrounds change, the simplistic objectives remain broadly similar. The Deluxe edition adds dungeons to the mix. Venture underground and you’ll face off against other Formees, some provided by the developer, others of your own creation. You’re given a typing based on your creature’s make-up, which forms part of an archetypal rock-paper-scissors setup: for example, Defensive types prove weak against Aggressive opponents but can breeze past Speedy monsters.

Sadly, encounters are simply a matter of sitting back and hoping for the best. There’s a certain slapstick appeal in seeing these outlandish characters take clumsy swings at each other with their elastic limbs, and the text descriptions are witty, but you can easily fall victim to the whims of the game. It’s no good having a strong Formee if they’re going to spend three turns jiggling on the spot to raise their offensive stats while having their health bar reduced to zero by an opponent who attacks every turns. Making stronger Formees with more parts can tilt the balance, however, though the trade-off for a multi-limbed creation is decreased manoeuvrability. As before, it’s exclusively stylus-controlled, which may annoy some, but there’s a tactile satisfaction to flinging your Formees around that sits well with their amusingly awkward movements.

The only other notable addition is a single-cart local multiplayer mode for up to four players. This allows the host to set themed creative sessions, with the resulting Formees revealed onstage, and shared between all involved. It seems a fairly throwaway diversion, but if you’re a parent with a creatively-minded child – or a big kid with a group of equally enthusiastic friends – it’s great fun. Whether that’s enough to make this a ‘Deluxe’ edition is highly debatable, though Nintendo has sensibly decided to release the game at a budget price.