SCXCR

SCXCR, or SCR, is a YouTube game reviewer, let's player, streamer, speedrunner, and musician who contributes to RiverCityGamers. He has the dubious honor of being the oldest member of the group.

History[]

SCR originally made his YouTube account to host a video of a live performance by a rock band he was in back in 2005. He would go on to create a few videos of Everquest raids by his former guild and a rant series for the Realistic Subspace Football League called "Antsy Is Mildly Irritated" before taking a stab at YouTube game reviewing in November of 2007 with Bloody Roar 4. He did so under the format of "Multiple Gaming Personalities," which he would also use in a video on Guitar Hero III before ditching the idea shortly into his Red Steel review, saying in so many words that he hated the format. He would keep the MGP initials, but instead they would stand for "Mr. Game Player."

Around 2009 he would start the "Five Dollar Gaming" video series. The first episode covering PS2 RPG Evergrace remains his most-hated video to date, with over 1/3 of the comments and ratings being negative. SCR, despite not liking the video himself (much like all his other videos), stands by his decision that the $3 lunch he got at Wendy's at the end of the video was a better purchase than the game.

RiverCityGamers officially announced SCR as a new member on Christmas Eve of 2009. A couple weeks later, SCR would ambush Unreal in a Skype call and have him unknowingly review a WiiWare rhythm game called Helix. Since then he has gone on to play a major role in both transporting people to convention meetups and as a host of the revamped RiverCityGamers podcast.

Before late 2017, SCXCR had a list of games he would cover and handpicked which one came next. After discussing with his patrons, he would use a combination of a random number generator and user polls to determine what to cover next.

Shows[]

SC On... - Having no particular format or theme, SCR simply speaks his mind about whatever game happens to be the subject for each episode. This started as little more than a vlog series before evolving into full-blown productions. It is essentially what the old "Mr. Game Player" videos became.

"SC On..." is also in written form, as SCR maintains a blog where he occasionally posts about other games he's played.

Five Dollar Gaming - SCR lives around several pawn shops and trade-in/retro gaming stores. That gave him the idea to have a show entirely dedicated to games that cost five dollar (before taxes) or less and help determine not only if they're worth the time, but the price. Due to the price however, the quality of said titles is often in question.

The Bloody Roar Retrospective - See below.

[fearless] - You know those scare cam videos? This is the opposite of that, and has no scare cam. SCR plays a questionably made horror game while either laughing or taking the piss out of everything that happens in it.

Hindsight Miscellanea - Based on the old saying that hindsight is 20/20, SCR adopts the persona of a well-to-do literary connoisseur while reading old stories from various gaming magazines. As he does this, a series of notes about what he reads appear which detail any fallacies, misinformation or end results which don't match up with what is said or implied.

Just a Moment - A much briefer version of the "SC On" series which doesn't go as in-depth and is more to the point.

Strumming the Bassline - SCR is one of those people who can "play by ear," or figure out how to play parts of a song just by listening to it. He applies this to his instrument of choice, the bass guitar, to play bass parts to various video game music, then writes down how to play it so others can play along as well.

The Seiken Densetsu Retrospective - Better known in the West as the "Mana" series, SCR details the various trials, tribulations, and successes of the series.

Inactive/On Hiatus

Just Play Along - These are game reviews done entirely in song, with SCR composing and performing original songs in various genres to break down the pros and cons of certain titles. Currently on hiatus while other music projects are worked on.

MGP in 3 - These were full reviews condensed to under three minutes, mostly by talking really fast.

Multiple Gaming Personalities - Throughout the review, SCR would change his appearance and voice to represent a different attitude toward the game being reviewed. At times these personalities would argue with each other while trying to discuss the finer points of a game.

Speedrunning[]

While his first attempt at speedrunning was following a GameFAQs guide to get the bonuses in the Resident Evil GameCube remake, he got inspired by the "Games Done Quick" marathons put on by SpeedDemosArchive and SpeedRunsLive to do it more regularly in 2013. He started off by running games he hated in an Ivan Drago-esque "I must break you" mentality, but transitioned to other titles over time. He currently has runs posted on SDA of Ninjabread Man and Escape from Bug Island and even got to run the former (one-handed no less) at Summer Games Done Quick 2014. He's also participated in the Bad Games Marathon of 2014, Seamergency 2014, and 2DCon's Midwest Speedfest in 2015 and 2016, among several others.

In 2017, SCXCR attended Awesome Games Done Quick and speedran Dragon's Lair and Battle Clash for the SNES. He did the latter while facing away from the TV and using a mirror to aim for the first three stages. As for the former, despite some mistakes, changing the route a couple hours beforehand and some rather obvious nerves, he set a new personal best (and record at the time) on stream.

2020 saw SCXCR do runs for both European Speedrunner Assembly's Corona Relief (Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge) and Summer Games Done Quick (Streets of Fury EX). The former was interrupted midway by a Discord call, and the latter saw one of the game's developers get interviewed on the French restream mid-run.

He eventually adapted his experiences in speedrunning to the video series "Tales of a Small-Time Speedrunner", covering everything from record progression to bizarre stories about live marathons.

SGDQ_2014_Ninjabread_Man_Speed_Run_in_04_43_One_Hand_by_SCXCR_SGDQ2014 — SGDQ 2014 Ninjabread Man Speed Run in 04 43 One Hand by SCXCR SGDQ2014

Choke count: 2

I Wanna Play[]

SCR has a thing about not calling his playthroughs let's plays, in part out of respect for the people who, frankly, are a lot better at it than he is. Games that have been a part of this series include, in chronological order:

X-Men Legends

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

House of the Dead: Overkill

Rayman (incomplete)

Ju-on the Grudge

Calling (incomplete)^

Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (incomplete)^

Jumping Flash

Kickle Cubicle

Skyblazer

Dragon's Lair (SNES)

Escape from Bug Island+

Vectorman

Beyond Oasis

BattleTanx

STASIS

Zangeki no Reginleiv (incomplete)

^ - The recorded footage for this game was lost during an external hard drive data transfer.

+ - Uploaded to the RiverCityGamers YouTube account.

The Bloody Roar Retrospective[]

Having never been satisfied with how his first review (Bloody Roar 4) turned out, SCR decided to create a retrospective on the series, starting with the first game and working his way up to 4. The idea was to present the higher points of the full series to put into perspective how far it fell with the release of Bloody Roar 4.

The first video was met with a surprising amount of success, as even Hudson Entertainment's twitter and Facebook pages would link to the video, despite his starting the video with a short monologue on how he still hadn't gotten over his hatred for Bloody Roar 4.

BRRHudsonEntFacebook — SCXCR's video, posted by Hudson Entertainment on their own Facebook page.

Once the second and third videos were released, as well as a promotional video for Bloody Roar 2 found through a Japanese auction site, SCR would surprise a few viewers by having the next episode cover the manga associated with the series, entitled Bloody Roar: The Fang. Doing so required him to (haphazardly) translate almost the entire 440+ page manga, including the bonus segments at the end of the special edition and individual volumes, something he largely couldn't do without resorting to kanji translation sites.

Over a year would pass before SCR completed the fifth part of the retrospective covering Primal Fury/Extreme. Then, after another year and a few months, he released the final part of the retrospective covering Bloody Roar 4. The video was so long that the initial upload was split into two parts, with each part being longer than any of the prior videos in the series. All together, the final entry was slightly longer than two hours and included a fight scene choreographed and performed by YouTube user FighterWorksFactory.

Useless Trivia[]

SCR has lived in 7 different homes and apartments, all of which are visible in his videos. In fact, the intro to his Red Steel review was filmed in one home while the rest was shot in his then-new home.
With rare exceptions, SCR ends up not liking his videos about four days after they're uploaded.
Up until the MGP video on the movie Santa Claus, SCR would compose and perform original intro music for each episode.
Streamed himself playing through Monster Hunter Tri's single player campaign. He completed it in a little over 40 hours and didn't faint a single time.
His first words as an official member of RiverCityGamers? "ZA WARUDO!"
Is a lifelong Cleveland sports fan, but also supports the Oakland Raiders and Celtic F.C.
Has been traveling to various conventions since 2008. At last count he has attended over 40; 34 as an attendee, 5 as a staffer, and 1 as a guest.
Conducted a Bloody Roar Marathon, in which he played through Arcade mode as every character from every Bloody Roar game. It took him about 24 hours of almost non-stop play to finish.
Holds a [fearless] Marathon every year around Halloween.
Has never played a Kingdom Hearts game. His reason? "Because of the fans."
At a convention panel about crappy creepypastas, became infamous for causing Mr. Creepypasta to say "Hey everybody, I'm looking at gay porno!" as part of a story.
Once entered a mystery fighting game tournament. The game turned out to be Sonic the Fighters and he somehow won despite never playing it before, garnering the much sought after prize of $9.
Placed second in a Duck Hunt high score challenge at Anime North 2013. The guy who got first place didn't show up so he won the prize (a shirt and some candy) by default.
Backs stuff on Kickstarter and Indiegogo a lot. He's contributed to a little over 50 projects, 46 of which were games and one of which was a game-based documentary.
His first game review was a written review of Guitar Hero, posted in 2006 as a guest submission on OMGJeremy.com.
He edited articles and occasionally wrote reviews and editorials for niche gaming site Operation Rainfall.
Once tried out for a professional football team, specifically the Columbus Destroyers of the Arena Football League. He didn't make the cut.

Other Activities[]

In addition to his own video work, SCR also handled videography for A&G Con, an animation and video gaming convention in Covington, Kentucky and/or Cincinnati, Ohio. He started doing this in 2009 and also participated in their Cosplay Wrestling/Multiverse Rumble event. He wrestled as Luigi, Speed Racer, Yugo Ogami, Bandit Keith, Parappa the Rapper, Beat, Phoenix Wright, Kanji Tatsumi, Richter Belmont and Tetsuo Shima and appeared as a Redead (Ocarina of Time version) to referee a match. He is a one-time A&G Heavyweight Champion and his signature moves include the 619, Cattle Mutilation and Fame Asser. In 2016, he became the first person to successfully defend the title, appearing as Tetsuo in a match against Kaneda and Black Dynamite. He would lose the title the next year as MechaKieth (a half-cyborg Bandit Keith), beaten by Skate from the Streets of Rage series.

A&G 2014 Multiverse Rumble Tiger Jackson -vs- Kanji Tatsumi

This is one of the few times SCXCR was in a match with someone his size.
He is an on-again-off-again amateur voice actor. For video purposes he applies this to his various readings of creepypastas, and for the rare one-off abridged episode by Zeromaster. He was also one of the voices for the heavy metal biker in Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn.
SCR posts individual music tracks under the band alias Semblance of Order. The "band" has had a few live performances to date, the most recent being at Midoricon 2014.
Studied and worked at Ohio State University.