Wednesday, November 21, 2012

"Wii-U you later!" Or "My terrible jokes...They Live!!!"



No, this entry isn’t about the Keith David and Roddy Roddy Piper-tastic flick “They Live” or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  It’s about the big ol’ honkin’ event that transpired over the weekend. The Wii-U…..has launched! The youngest son of Nintendo hath been unleashed!

Be careful..sudden movement provokes it..Photo by wiiu-spiele.com

It’s weird, the last major console (another Nintendo product) came out six years a go. It feels so distant now, but also there doesn’t seem to be a massive Internet-Cracking hoopla attached to this launch as compared to the Playstation 3’s infamous $599 USD price tag.

In my close circle of pals, things have been rather quiet in regards to the Wii U release. Some people pre-ordered it, some people are taking a wait and see approach and, some are so disinterested they’ve actually forgotten it’s been released.

Now, before any labels of fanboy or hater are branded on my easily-bruised-baby-skin, I’d like to share my history with Nintendo.

Way back in the ancient year of 1994 is where my gaming history begins. A colleague of my parents had given the family an SNES. Once the set up of the system was complete, I walked over to the living room with my sister and our world changed.

Being drunk off this bit of Nintendo Joy led us to the film...we quickly sobered up


We saw a tiny man running to the right side of the screen, armed with a freshly pilfered turtle shell and a green lizard thing that hatched from an egg.  We started up and were just in awe of the first level (Yoshi’s Island 1); a catchy little tune played, gorgeous colourful sprites dazzled, crazy stage design amused us and- HOLY CRAP!!! IS THAT A GIANT BULLET?!

Gee..thanks for easing us into the madness, game.


We spent the next couple of months squealing with joy at the new worlds we would find and eventually started frequenting the local Blockbuster. Officially, if you want to get technical, my video game history started a bit before that. The family had gone over to a friend’s house and while there, I hung out with the family’s son. He briefly showed me Sonic the Hedgehog and it was really fun, but a bit of a fuzzy memory.  What makes the SNES memory so vivid is that this was in our own home and it was our own possession, and most importantly, my sister was there to see gameplay this time around....and we were traumatized by a giant bullet.

Video games were and still are fundamental in our bonding; we have spent countless hours competing to see who would first get a bonus life in the Technodrome level of TMNT IV; Turtles in Time, scratching our heads in confusion on how to play Sega CD’s Sewer Shark, desperately trying to kill Mr. X in Streets of Rage with only 1 life left, and flipping out as we encountered a crippling game freeze on the Aries boss battle of God of War 1. (I swear, that crap happened around 13 times in his second-form-near-death-sword struggle mode.)

Nintendo started us off, and then later we got a Sega Genesis (it was around Christmas, so it was the Sega CD combo-pack thing-a-thing) and then later a Dreamcast and so on.
We were around in the height of the console wars with the “Sega does what Nintendon’t” zingers were being flung around. We didn’t care; we had both systems and were more concerned with what Blockbuster had to offer.  The biggest thing that came to bitterness towards Nintendo was the Virtual Boy. While my sister was off checking out the new releases, I just had to try out the new crazy system on display….it did not end well. I swear, I blame that thing for my imperfect vision and extra dimensional senses. (Good lord…time is…itchy!)

"I was born in the crucible of fear!" - Photo by Rain Rabbit




We’ve gone through a lot of consoles and kept a pretty open mind towards new releases. The thing is, even though we didn’t get an N64 or a Gamecube, we still had no hard feelings against Nintendo. Most of the time, what prevented us from getting the system was timing on releases and console exclusive sequels to games we already loved. The two of us were actually curious about the Wii in the beginning, but ultimately couldn’t afford a new system during its good days.  There were a small handful of games that seemed like they would be interesting to us, thus we chose to sit that one out. Also, there was a significant frustration about the lack of classic properties being showcased. Yes, we expected a Zelda or a Mario, or a Metroid, but gah! Nintendo has such a rich library of characters at its disposal. They needed to get out of lather-rinse-repeat mode. What’s worse is that with Smash Brothers, it brought back attention to many MIA favourites, but afterwards, zip! Back in the crate Diddy. Thankfully towards the end of its life cycle, we at least saw a new Donkey Kong….and they tried to bring back Kid Icarus with mixed results…

We saw a lot of different arguments on why the system was or wasn’t great. I think between a lack of third party support, some odd E3 moments, and a staggering array of shovelware, Nintendo had made some bad decisions.

Thankfully it seems that the Wii-U is trying to resolve some of those past mistakes and generally has some interesting things coming. I’ll be sitting this one out as well, but mainly due to the fact that I own a PS3 and it’s not time for me to get a new console.

I think it’s too early to tell how things are going for Nintendo, but I do ultimately hope that the Wii-U has a successful venture.  Competition is a great driving force and prevents the big three companies from getting lazy.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go have a street fight with a sunglasses wearing drifter in an alleyway who may or may not be associated with the WWE. Until next time readers!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Intro Blog or Good Morning, have a shocking day!



Greetings! Thanks for stopping by, you’re a wonderful crowd!...uh…anyone there? Oh...oop.  Well I might as well introduce myself, that’s the polite and sensible thing to do.

Well, I’m D.J. Dixon. I’m better known as Shockdingo, Shock-Dingo, or even le Generalissimo!...okay that last one is not true (especially after faking my death) ANYWAYS!  I’m a freelance voice actor who’s been at this little gig for about 7 years now. I’ve been in productions on Newgrounds, lent my voice to Youtube videos and currently, I can be heard in the X-Box Live game Dust: An Elysian Tail in a certain little subterranean village.

Life's problems can be solved by hittin' things...with sticks.


Time to explain a few things, first, my name: How on earth did I come up with the grand non sequitur that bonds together a dingo and electricity? Mega Man X.  Yes, Mega Man X. All the way back in 2004 I was on a binge; just indulging in the great pixelized worlds that only the SNES could craft. In my free time, I was playing Mega Man X1 to X3 over the course of a month or so and was loving every moment of the retro goodness and blasting apart Maverick carcasses in the fight against the ever immortal, ever evil…and ever bald Sigma.  Around this time, a friend had cracked a dingo joke and that got me thinking out of the blue.

What was a dingo really? What did it look like? What was with that unsettling penchant for eating babies that the media was constantly going on about? (Yes, it is that easy to distract me and get me on a tangent of discovery…sadly.)

Anyways, Google was around in its infancy then, so that quickly cut down on the mystery.

Handsome lil' fellas aint they?- Photo by Brian Giesen




“Woah, fuzzy orange wolf-things! Sweet!” That, combined with my 16-bit trip down memory lane had me wondering what kind of Maverick I could make by my lonesome.

Now for those of you not in the know, Mavericks are robotic animal dudes who are the primary bosses in Mega Man X. In the original Mega Man series, the baddies would typically be based off a particular element or theme. So you had ElecMan, Woodman, Gutsman, all of that.  In 1994 Capcom fast forwarded the series into the far flung future and to make a long story short, the bad guys were now mainly robotic animals with the various themes. Storm Eagle, Gravity Beetle, and Neon tiger were amongst the newbies.

One such character, Sting Chameleon in beads by ZaneBellamy

One day I decided to sign up on Newgrounds.com. I had frequently visited the site in the past, but upon my 2k4 return, things had gotten a facelift to say the least. There were certain advantages for those with an account, so I got to thinking, it was time to join up.

“Hmm, what should I pick? I need something original, something lacking numbers, X’s and 0’s…hey…I just started Mega Man X3! I can make a Maverick decision!...hah…Maverick.”

So what was my element going to be? I was stumped for a second until something relating to the cycloptic Decepticon, Shockwave blasted through my mind like a Rhino charging at a hunter with a jammed rifle. The idea worked; the name was original (if not a bit ridiculous) and memorable. The name has since stuck.

Wow, that was a rather longwinded origin story….anyways, the second thing that needs explaining is the name of this blog; Electric Voicebox. Well, that’s simple really. I got involved in voice acting about a year after making the screen name. Things were slow, but I finally really started seeing results in around my 2nd or so year of voice acting. Sticking with the electric motif, I thought of the electric voice aids some people use as a result of damage to their larynx.

Well, now that that’s out of the way, I guess I can explain a bit about what I’ll be doing with this blog. I’m a big fan of comic books, video games, 3d renderings (I have no talent for it all, but love the stuff), films and talking at length about random subjects.

Comics and cartoons are two of my oldest loves. I’ve been reading comics since I was around 6 years old. My first comic was bought in a super market, and it was the Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective #2. I had no idea what was going on, but I only recognized Captain America and I thought he looked cool. I also was intrigued by the doppelganger battle that was the focus of the issue. Captain America fought USAgent, Thor fought Thunderstrike, and Iron Man battled War Machine.

Since then, these forms of media have entertained me, inspired me, and even have found ways to challenge me.

Because these subjects have left such an impact on me, I will be writing at length on them and how they’ve shaped my world as well as how they’ve shaped the world around us.

Well then, off to the next post, eh?

See ya then!