Guardians of the Galaxy Pinball Review (Android)

A couple of days ago I bit the silver bullet used to kill werewolves and I paid $3 for the Avengers Pinball and The Guardians of the Galaxy Pinball. This is big for me. I would rather spend $70 on a PS3 game than $3 on a mobile device.

I bought the game after seeing the movie, which was amazing (that's my review, 4.75 stars), and seeing this article, I didn't read the article. But I did read the title, 'Guardians of the Galaxy Pinball may be best table yet'. And boy did that title get me intrigued. I bought the Marvel Pinball App for $1 and it came with The Avengers table, I had to fork out another $2 for the Guardians table. It is worth noting that as of the time of writing this Marvel Pinball is free on iOS.

Now I have played a few pinball machines in my time, my father was a Pinball Wizard and my mother a Pinball Queen so I spent a lot of time playing them as a child. The only other digital pinball I played was Pokemon Pinball on the Gameboy Color, and that sucked major balls compared to the real thing. Shit I also played Sonic Spinball, but that is more of a spinball than a pinball so it might not count.

So how do the Marvel App Pinballs hold up compared to other digital titles I have played? It blows them out of the park. They look, sound, and feel exactly like a real table. Obviously they are smaller, and lighter, and portable; but other than that they are a true recreation of actual pinballs at a tiny fraction of the price.

While the Guardians of the Galaxy table is really good, and definitely worth the extra $2 there are some noticeable problems. The game starts with a Multiball, all the balls in the table come out at once and you muck around with them for a minute, this minute doesn't seem to affect the score too much, the highest I got from it was 2.2 million points. After the minute-multiball-mania, Peter Quill ( GuardianOfTheGalaxyMan) says that he needs his 70s inspired music and it is your job to hit a ball that launches at you into a specific ramp. This will net you an easy 5 million point headstart if you can land it. As well as the 5 million points you are also treated to a 10 second trailer with the title of the movie flying in space, it is terrible and takes away from the flow.

If you are trying for a high score you will need to repeat the minigame every time, all up it takes about a minute and a half, just to start a new game. It may be fun a few times, or every now and then but you could honestly just leave your phone on the desk until the real game starts and not really be penalised for it.

There are these cartoon figures littered around the table and they will dance around and spout typical pinball one-liners. Overall they add a layer to the game that could not exist on an actual table but there are certain point when they can get distracting. For example there is a skill game that has Peter Quill and Ronan (AntiGuardianOfTheGalaxyMan) shooting plasma at each other. Ronan also shoots plasma at your ball when he wants to vaporise it. It's fine if he wants to vaporise my ball, it's distracting when he wants to vaporise Peter Quill and it looks like it vaporises my ball. I have lost my ball because I thought it got vaporised only for it to fall down the guts of the table.

Those are my only two complaints. The stupid long intro, and the sometimes distracting nature of the cartoons.

I have spent the last three days playing this game. My thumbs are worn down and blistered from playing the game too much. I have probably racked up about 14 hours between the 3 tables I have. It is most definitely a fun game.

The ball feels like a ball, you never find yourself cursing the game for unfairly putting the ball in dire situations. You are always in control.

The music in the game is heavily inspired from 70s rock and it sounds amazing. It fits the tone of the movie by not being overly dramatic and by just being fun. It's the song in the trailer above if you want to hear it for yourself.

The voice-acting can get a little repetitive but the characters all have voices true to their movie counterparts. Quill will deliver one-liners differently than his movie counterpart but sticks to the tone. Groot is amazing, whatever he says in certain situations is exactly what he would say in a similar situation in the movie. Rocket, Drax and Ronan are perfect, Quill and Groot are obviously different voice actors, but it is a little harder to tell with Rocket, Drax and Ronan. Gamora was jibbed in this game though. She is told to wait in the ship at the start of the game, she tells Quill to leave his music behind and she sounds exactly like Peggy from Married With Children, otherwise she has no other lines in the game. Maybe a couple on her mini-pinball, but nothing worth remembering.

An amazing addition to this game are the Leaderboards. In the beginning (two days ago) I was always trying to improve my score, just for the sake of beating my score. Now I look at the scores of the world. Currently I am ranked 22nd in the world. It's a great feeling and now that I know I am competing against the world I can easily improve my score again.

The game is great despite its flaws. It is better value than buying a real pinball, it is better value than putting dollar coins into a pinball at the pub. So far it has cost me 30 cents for every hour I have played and the more I play it the better the value will be. If you are a fan of the old brick and mortar pinballs I recommend buying the game. If you hate digital pinballs, maybe don't buy it. If you think you will get your moneys worth out of it then you should definitely buy it. I bought it and I had no idea I was going to enjoy it so much. As a game I would give it 6/10, as a pinball I would give it 8.5 out of 10.

Superhero TV Shows VS Movies

Credit where credit is due. Inspiration for this post comes from IGN, and also I have been watching a fuckload of Arrow. Full disclaimer, I love Superhero Movies. I've blogged on all the recent comic book movies. The aim of this blog is to present the pros and cons of the movies and the shows.

Character Development

In any of the Spider-Man movies only a couple of people develop over the show. Peter Parker goes from nerdy highschooler to a Spider-themed Superhero. His antagonist will go from good guy to bad guy, sometimes back to a good guy. His aunt will get kidnapped and give hints that she knows Pete is Spider-man. Most superhero movies will have similar characters and develop them. 

But if you watch Arrow. If you watch fucking Arrow. Then you see the most ridiculous amount of character development for a superhero and his supporting cast. I'd even say the most out of any screened-superhero. For the first couple of episodes I hated Oliver Queen. I thought I had seen enough superhero movies to know that if I hated the protagonist not much would change my mind. But fuck me was I wrong. Oliver Queen is the man, he gets shit done. He has flaws and he recognizes them, and it happens over a believable length of time. 

World Building

If a Superhero has more than one villain appear at a time it is often criticized as been overcrowded. The Avengers worked so well because every major character had already been introduced. In a movie the audience expects to be entertained for the whole movie, and justifiably so, the filmmakers don't have the time to flesh out every character and introduce new ones in a single movie. Whereas a television show has nothing but time to introduce characters and develop their motives and relations. Over two seasons of Arrow, Oliver Queen has fucked like 200 girls (198 more than Peter Parker) and has 50 villains (45 more than all the Movie Avengers combined). 

There are so many secret societies running around in Arrow that it is hard to keep track of. Sure there are many alluded to in the Marvel Movies and some even brought to the forefront, but Arrow does a lot more with them albeit over a longer stretch of time. Movies barely scratch the surface of the source material, the first Thor barely showed any of Valhalla and over 5 Spider-Man movies we can't see anything as great as a Spider-Man Nickelodeon cartoon.

Actually Superheroes

What makes a hero a hero? How many times do you have to save the world to be considered a superhero? In the movies Tony Stark defeats a bigger Tony Stark to be considered a superhero. Spider-Man fights a Lizard-Man and is considered a superhero. Captain America defeats Red Hitler and is considered the world's first superhero. That is one guy, until the next movie. I would like to believe that in between movies these heroes are fighting other villains, but the movies keep telling us that nothing new has happened in a length of time. Spider-Man didn't gain any new enemies between the Lizard and Electro. In a television show you see the day to day lives of a superhero. And every day he is fighting some new guy with powers, or making a new friend. You see the inner workings of a superhero in a superworld.

Movies have their place. They are huge budget escapes with high stakes. Big events. Fun popcorn time. Large water coke with ice please. Deep-fried peppermint choctop. They are easy to see, you can see them with friends that barely care about the source material and every movie is different. TV shows require a lot more time and energy but the payoff is greater, even if the reward isn't equal to the time invested.

Get pumped for the Daredevil TV Show coming out.

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I have a Twitter, so follow me or else : @KrisCreedYo

Captain America: Winter Soldier Aussie Thoughts

G'day mate. You've been hurt before. It's ok now. The first Captain America movie was beloved by a lot of people. Those people were Americans. Some other people may have liked it but it was Captain Stars & Stripes the Amazing Patriot VS Nazis. The movie was probably fine I, like all my friends, fell asleep watching it. I still went on movie discussion forums and all I saw was praise for the first Captain America movie. I have since chalked this up to patriotism.

So when the reviews for the second Captain America movie started rolling in positively I had to critically think whether it was going to be a good movie or not. The positive reviews could have been American propaganda for all I knew and expected. Surprisingly though, Winter Soldier was amazing.

The movie expands on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not everything is as it seems, which is great for a 70's style action spy thriller modern superhero movie epic. There is corruption within SHIELD and Captain America doesn't know who he can trust, so he trusts the first person he meets after being told not to trust anyone and also he trusts the person he ran past at the beginning of the movie. It is still really cool though.

Comic elements are made more apparent in this movie than the previous Iron Mans and Captain America. Not everything is cemented in reality, thus making the movie a lot more fun than previous movies. The Triskelion from the Ultimate Comics makes an appearance and is moved to Washington DC from New York. Everything makes sense in this movie. Corruption. Super Villains.

This movie could have easily been Agents of SHIELD: The Movie. The plot is SHIELD centric, the villains are villains of SHIELD more than Captain America, though the titular villain does have a lot in common with Cap.

This photo would have worked better in my Zombie Apocalypse/Captain America blog

The casting was perfect. Chris Evans nailed Captain America moreso than the previous movies. Scarlett Johanson provided more depth to the Black Widow. Samuel L Jackson showed Nick Fury as more than the all-knowing badass that he has been depicted as. GHB had an amazing cameo as Batroc the Leaper. Holy Fuck The Winter Soldier was a beast, he was the Terminator mixed with Robocop mixed with Captain America, massive beast. Cobie Smulders was a badass, that Falcon guy was a badass, the badass guy who fought the Falcon was a badass. Any one of these characters could have been swapped with John McClane and the movie would make perfect sense. That is how badass everyone is.

The theme of the movie, Surveillance VS Freedom Cage Match XXX, correlated a lot with what is happening in the real world. It shows insight into Big Brothering the world and whistleblowing. Americans may take more from this movie than the rest of the world but the message is internationally relevant.

With this movie Marvel has expanded the Earth elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The world is now being lifted from realism into something a lot more fun. Intrigue, superpowers, super villains. This movie has it all.

If you are wondering whether to see this or the Lego Movie, do yourself a favour and see this one first.

How to Thrive in a Zombie Apocalypse

Every country has its horror stories. Spain has been conquered so many times no one could tell you what a true Spaniard is (citation needed). Now imagine you are at war. Everyone you love is gone. Your values no longer hold any meaning. You can't win, the enemy is too strong, they grossly outnumber you. But you are given an out. If you can't beat 'em, you can join 'em. If you are on the losing side and given a choice between death and joining the enemy you might as well be alive and on the winning side.

Hopefully you can already see where this is going. If the entire planet is overrun by the undead and you have managed to make it that far, good on you. Kill thousands of zombies every day, live in isolation and fear. But me? See you later loser, I'm joining the winning team. As a human you have to worry about gathering food, every day, or you will starve, and die. To get food you have to outsmart legions of the undead. As a zombie, you don't have to eat. You may eat a human every now and then, or try and spread your disease, but if you don't eat literally nothing bad will happen. Zombies also don't sleep, and they don't feel fear. You could go from being a lightbulb technician to being a super-soldier that humans have only hoped for.

You would basically be Captain America

Humans are weak and prone to dying, but Zombies are immortal. They aren't you say? They can still get shot in the head and decapitated? Sure they can, but that is only because most join the ranks of undead with small aspirations. I have only given out the information to survive a zombie apocalypse. What I am offering now is the knowledge of how to thrive in a zombie apocalypse. 

Top Tips to Survive as a Zombie

1. First thing is first. You want to cover your weaknesses, and zombies do have them. The first thing to do after getting bitten by a zombie is to wear a helmet. A big, strong, durable football one, preferably with a part that protects your face. This will protect from blunt attacks from baseball bats and golf-clubs. 

2. You want to protect your neck. If you don't have chain mail armour then I suggest you get a bunch of normal chain links and wrap them around your neck. This will prevent decapitation in most situation.

3. Get as many sharp objects as you can and shove them through your body. I would recommend swords facing outwards diagonally through your forearms. Repeatedly shove sharp weapons through your arm until you resemble Wolverine or something more frightening. By having sharp, slashy weapons protruding from your body you give yourself more weapons. And frankly zombies need more weapons, all they really have are their mouths, and we covered that in step one. By the time you become a zombie humans would be pretty deadly against stock-standard zombies. By using the element of surprise you can bolster the ranks of your undead team.

4. Make some noise. By completing the last 3 steps you have become an Alpha-level Zombie. But you aren't a rookie, oh no. You are a strong, independent woman. You want to be the Zombie King. That's fine, that's why you're reading this. My personal favourite for making noise is wearing squeaky shoes. If you don't have squeaky shoes then tie dog toys to the bottom of your feet. This will make beta zombies follow you around, giving you much better attack and defense against groups of humans. If you are somewhat of an engineer you may be able to rig together an alarm that sets off if your back falls against the floor, giving you a mighty army to defend your zombie self.

Hopefully these tips makes you feel safer about the impending zombie apocalypse and I hope you try and employ these tactics to get the most out of everyone else's misery.

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Don't think my amazing tips will help you? Let me know in the comments and I will help you out with your problems. Also I have a Twitter, so follow me or else : @KrisCreedYo  

Too Excited for Godzilla

Remember the last time you saw a Godzilla movie? Three months ago when they played it on Channel 7. It was a decent movie. KFC ran a decent promotion on it, even though the toys weren't even Godzillas from the movie. What I am trying to say is, the movie was popular, it still sort of is. Matthew Broderick is a cool guy and he tried to fight a Godzilla, a cool monster.

Now I don't know much about Godzilla outside of the Matthew Broderick version but I know he is worshipped by lizards, or zillas. He was also huge in Japan and he fought other monsters, sometimes they were mechanical. I think he might have even fought King Kong at one stage, but as I said, my knowledge on Godzilla is limited.

This might have happened, also does Godzilla have a mouth laser?

I've seen Pacific Rim, I've touched on the convergence of cultures in cinema before so I'm pretty much an expert on everything ever. What Hollywood is trying to do is to create Hollywood budget movies that appeal to people that aren't necessarily Americans. Pacific Rim was more successful in the East than the West, that's fine. Hollywood is expanding it's audience, and that means people will be seeing some big-budget movies that break the mould. One of the gripes I had with Matthew Brozilla was that it was people mainly dealing with a natural disaster. Godzilla could have been subbed in for a Volcano or a Tsunami or an Earthquake. With Hollywood focusing some of its efforts towards the East maybe Western audiences will be exposed to something different in cinema. One of my hopes is that a samurai tries to fight Godzilla with a sword and manages to deflect Godzilla's punches and runs vertically up Godzilla's body and cuts him in the eye, only for Godzilla to be mostly unphased like when Superman gets shot in the eye in Superman Returns.

See that image? It's big, I made it so people could read it. Godzilla is bigger than he has ever been before. Or she, seeing as she gave birth in Brozilla. How is anyone going to fight that? Sure I'd use diplomacy to get him to be my best friend, but I'm not in the movie, except as an extra that dies in the first half an hour. But seriously, a punch can't hurt Godzilla, an army can't beat Godzilla. The only things I can think of that can beat Godzilla are Superheroes, bigger monsters and science. Which leads me to my next point.

Bryan Cranston is playing the scientist guy. As you may already know Bryan Cranston has incredible range from father with troubles to father with troubles that cooks good meth. Well he at least has the range to deal with troubles (Godzilla) and cook meth (Science stuff, Godzilla's weakness).

This movie will be amazing. It is going to iron out the flaws in the first movie and keep it closer to it's source material. It has to, surely Hollywood won't disappoint. Also for continuity I'll throw in the trailer so you can be even more excited for this movie.

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If you enjoyed this at all and have made it this far add me on Twitter @KrisCreedYo, sometimes I do more than self promote.

Too Excited for Guardians of the Galaxy

I know, I know. 2 of the last 2 movies I have been excited for are Marvel movies. But give me some credit, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 look exciting. And what is more exciting than people with ultra powers beating on other people with ultra powers? Monsters and robots fighting each other, but it was rhetoric anyway.

Now I'm a comics guy. I love Spider-Man, X-Men and Daredevil. I know the difference between an Infinite Crisis and an Infinity Gauntlet, but in all honesty, I would not have known what a Guardian of a Galaxy was if it wasn't going to be a movie. Sure I played as Rocket Raccoon in Marvel VS Capcom 3 but I didn't know where he fit into anything. That said, when they announced GotG however long ago I did some research, and this is the movie you want. To watch. At the cinemas. Dish out and buy some expensive popcorn and a peppermint choc top.

Does anyone remember that DC movie that wasn't Superman or Batman? The one with the guy with the ring? I was excited (not too excited) to see it because I thought it would build this universe in space like Trek Wars Episode 1 Wrath of Khan. But it didn't, space was empty, the only powers in the universe were Green Courage and Fear Yellow. Ryan Reynold's character had no flaws, he had a hidden one which was fear but that was actually a strength because if you fear something you can overcome it. Cop-out. There were no mentions of Krypton (unless there was), no other powers that weren't colours and no other heroes. Superman just writing a feature article while a yellow monster thing tries to eat the planet.



In contrast you have the Guardians of the Galaxy. The five lead characters are all different. You have Chris Pratt from Parks and Recreation playing Starlord and he is right at home, none of that fish out of water cliche that every other human has in space. You have Drax the Destroyer played by Batista, and he doesn't need a power ring to go on a rampage. You have Rocket Raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper, where the hell did a raccoon come from? There must be a raccoon planet, easy, I don't need my hand being held. Vin Diesel plays a tree, the role was made for him, perfect casting. Then you have that hot green chick that is topless in the trailer. Progress! Every character is a character, no one feels tacked on. Even John C. Reilly as a prison guy adds a lot to the movie already in my opinion.

Through end-credit scenes this movie has already been linked to Thor and The Avengers. We already know a lot about the universe, the foundations have been laid. You have Thanos running around with Chitauri somewhere. You have Asgard being ran somewhere else as well as all the realms shown in the Thor movies. There is a planet with heroes running around having adventures all the time. From the trailer we can see there is a prison for space criminals. There is heaps of room to expand, and with the Disney acquisition of Star Wars there could even be links to Star Wars.

This movie has an all-star cast of reliable actors, it shows promise for an expanded universe and it has a Blue Suede song in the trailer. How can anyone not be too excited for this movie?

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Too Excited for The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I've seen trailers before. I've even seen a movie or two. But this year is set to have some of the most exciting movies ever. I'm not normally one to be excited by trailers and heresay and whathaveyou but some of these movies look amazing. Such as...

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The Amazing Spider-Man 1 may not have been the best superhero movie, hell, it wasn't even the best Spider-Man movie. It had it's fair share of problems, such as recapping an origin that movie-goers saw a decade ago, aborting plotlines like Peter's super spy parents, and fighting a bigger, stronger version of himself in the Lizard. But the new movies have Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield who are cast perfectly as Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker. The new movies were always being built to be part of a franchise and that would be the excuse for all the dangling threads in the first movie. With all that aside, check out the trailer.

Crime has had to adapt to dealing with a superhero. Super villains are beginning to pop up and team up against our Amazing hero. Just look at Electro alone. He shoots lightning bolts, that's what Thor does and Thor doesn't go around fighting Spider-Men in the movies. The odds have ramped up, Spider-Man has to deal with bigger threats. And Electro is just one of them. He also has to deal with a Robot Rhinoceros (AKA The Rhino) and a Super Villain hiding behind the scenes who knows Spider-Man's secret.

Sure, Spider-Man 3 suffered from having too many villains, but hopefully this one will be different.

There is also the mention of Aunt May hiding something about Peter Parker's past. The old thread in the first movie will actually be used. This is amazing, everyone thought the plot thread will just be forgotten, but there you go. We are finally going to learn that Peter Parker's past parents discovered a cure for cancer and then were killed by Carnage. Or not.

We have to all get excited for May to see how this movie turns out.

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Over the next week I am going to blog on upcoming movies that are shaping up well.

Follow me on Twitter and thank you for reading.

Sonic's redesign and how it will make Bank

Once was a time whence everyone recognised Sonic the Hedgehog as a System Mascot. Sonic was to Sega as Mario was to Nintendo. I know this, you know this. If you weren't playing Mario as a kid you were playing Sonic (or football).

Sonic was an edgy, cool looking hedgehog who could run really fast despite being a chubbo. And kids ate him up.

Pictured: A fat, blue comb

When Sega was a major player everyone knew who Sonic was. But after Sega transformed into a third party developer every Sonic game arguably tended to be on the average side.

With a string of games featuring Sonic as a knight, a manbearhogwolf and a glitch gamers did not recognise the Sonic product as a seal of quality.

Recent games such as Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations (and Sonic: Lost World? Maybe. I haven't played it but I like how the DLC has Yoshi's Island in it.) were really good. Despite these games rising above the 'Sonic is terrible' category they still both sold under 4 million units combined. Compare this to the original Sonic on the Sega Megadrive that sold over 15 million units. Sonic's recognition has been reduced to the blue guy in the Mario Olympics games and that guy who has the spring in Super Smash Bros.

But all this doom, gloom and boom does not spell the end for this spiny mammal as Sega has negotiated a deal where BigRedButton Studios take the reigns of a Sonic game. BigRedButton is made up of the old NaughtyDog employees that brought the world the Crash Bandicoot series and the Jak and Daxter series. Both amazing series by the way.

In the above video we see the first video reveal of SonicBoom. The newest instalment in the Sonic Franchise that takes place in a parallel universe from the core games. A huge difference between this new game and others is the redesign of the characters.

New Designs

Old Designs

The characters have not been altered too much. Their new designs just add flair to their otherwise outdated design. The characters all look more individual instead of the different hairstyle, different colours and slightly different shoes. The most obvious change in design in how Knuckles is now a beast. This goes in line with his character as he is supposed to be the strongest of all the characters. Having more bulk and MMA gloves with spikes on them cements Knuckles as a strong, independent Echidna.

Also Sonic has blue arms and a scarf. Which pisses off Sonic Fans. But everything pisses off Sonic fans.

Accompanying the game is a TV show set to air on Cartoon Network alongside shows such as Adventure Time and Regular Show.

Sonic is finally going to marketed towards his intended audience. With the game finally being out of Sega's incapable hands and a television show telling kids that Sonic exists this game will make bank. It may be the solid title Nintendo needs on its WiiU to actually sell some consoles.

Notice any mistakes in my blog, let me know in the comments, I'll delete the mistake and you'll look like an idiot. Also let me know how you think SonicBoom will go compared to other titles.

The Rise and Fall of Flappy Bird

The most downloaded mobile game of February 2014 was Flappy Bird. The game was published by .Gear Studios and made by Dong Nguyen. The game was, at most, a fad. Everyone was playing it either to see how bad it was for themselves or the get a new high score, or both.

On the 10th of February creator Dong Nguyen took the game off iTunes and the Google Play Store.

Reports have claimed that Flappy Birds was making $50k on average a day from ad-revenue. Anyone would be ecstatic to be making that much money a day. So why did Dong Nguyen take his game off the market?

Nguyen's Twitter feed suggest he did not take the game down for legal reasons. Some digging around suggests he took the game down due to its addictive nature.

But taking the game offline has not stopped people from finding ways to play it. There are many clones of the game such as Clumsy Bird, Flappy Bird World and Angry Flappy Bird. For people who will accept nothing but the original they can buy an iPhone with the game preloaded on it currently as low as $500AU for an iPhone 3GS.

The moral of the story is that these addicts are going to get their fix, because they are addicts. By removing the game Nguyen is not stopping people from being addicted. The only difference is that now he does not get any extra income from downloads. Nguyen has stated that he likes his life simple and does not need all the money.

What I foresee happening is that the app is only the beginning. By not letting the fad run its course the game will gain a cult-like following. Nguyen stopped the Flappy Bird train while it was at its peak of momentum, the game was only ever going to fade into obscurity over time. By removing the game people will only feel nostalgia for when it was simple to download Flappy Bird.

Within the next 2 years there will either be a Flappy Bird Documentary or a Flappy Bird Movie.

I, for one, hope its a movie.

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Follow me on Twitter @KrisCreedYo