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      Gaming News

      Twitch Feature Menu: Minnesota Toz

      Twitch Feature Menu: Minnesota Toz

       

       

      29-year-old Englishman that loves curry. I started on twitch as a Minecraft and Stardew Valley streamer but that changed when I celebrated reaching 100 followers by making a Ramen. That stream was so much fun that I continued as a food streamer ever since. Outside of my stream I create food and drink events for the twitch community, I manage a community channel as well as co-own a creative online community currently sitting at over 1700 members.

       

       Minnesota Toz

       8Bit_Community

       

      First Gaming Memory: First gaming memory was playing Pong with my dad on an old Atari he had bought in the early 90's.

      Favourite Gaming Memory: Favourite gaming memory was probably the 3 years spent playing Destiny 1 with the same fireteam almost every day.

       

      What inspired you to start streaming?

      My wife got big on twitch and it looked fun so I started streaming as well, I got into food & drink streamers after following a train of raids into a food streamer and was absolutely amazed. This led to my 100 follow celebration Ramen stream which caused me to stick it out as a food and drink streamer.

       

      What do you love most about your community?

      I love the amount of outreach it has given us on the platform, we have raised 10's of thousands of dollars for charity and made some very close friends along the way, it's something I never thought I would have a hand in creating.

       

      What motivates you to participate in charity streams?

      Knowing that the time I'm spending streaming is doing good for others.

       

      What encouraged you to start cooking as a beginner?

      I have always been interested in cooking since my mum let me help her bake cake when I was super young, I probably got back into cooking about 6 years ago when I taught myself how to make bread and now it's all about learning as many skills as I can.

       

      Where did you first pick up the recipe you did on stream?

      What I made for the Bite The Bullet stream was a google search until I found some recipes I liked, my curry attached is something I made up from scratch.

       

       

       

      Chicken Chana Aloo (The Toz Curry)

       

      Ingredients:

      • 4 Tbsp Peanut or Vegetable or Canola oil
      • 1lb potato, chopped into 1 inch pieces
      • 1lb boneless chicken thigh, chopped into 1 inch pieces
      • 16oz can chickpeas, drained
      • 16oz can crushed tomato
      • 1 cup chicken broth
      • 7oz coconut milk
      • 1 large onion, chunky dice
      • 1 shallot, small dice
      • 6 cloves garlic, fine dice**
      • 1 Tbsp ginger, fine dice**
      • 1 Tbsp Madras Powder (or basic curry powder)
      • 1 tsp Cumin
      • ½ tsp Coriander
      • ½ tsp Cinnamon
      • ½ tsp Cayenne Pepper*
      • ½ tsp Garam Masala
      • ½ tsp Paprika
      • ½ tsp Yellow Mustard Powder
      • ½ tsp White Pepper
      • ½ tsp Tumeric
      • 3 Bay Leaves
      • Salt to taste

       

      Process:

      1. Heat oil in a large cooking pot on low heat.
      2. Add diced onion and shallot to pot, cook until they begin to turn transparent, stir when needed to avoid onions browning.
      3. Add chicken pieces and cook until it loses its raw colour.
      4. Add garlic, potatoes and chickpeas, cook for 5 - 10 minutes stirring occasionally.
      5. Add all spices and stir until all ingredients are evenly coated, turn heat to medium, cook until the spices start to stick to the bottom of the pan and become fragrant.
      6. Immediately add the cup of chicken stock and bring to a boil. The spices will burn quickly when they begin to stick to the bottom of the pot.
      7. When boiling add crushed tomatoes and stir.
      8. Return to rolling boil and stir in coconut milk.
      9. Reduce heat to low and simmer with lid on for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
      10. After 30 minutes, test if the potatoes are cooked through. If not, continue to simmer until the potatoes are done.
      11. Serve with basmati rice and garnish with diced green onion.

       

      Notes:

      • * Cayenne pepper spice ratings
      • A nice meal - ½ tsp Prickly - 1 tsp
      • Hmmmm - 2 tsp
      • May I have water? - 1 Tbsp
      • Mother, help me - 2 Tbsp
      • I must leave this planet - 3 Tbsp


      ** You can use 2 or 3 Tbsp garlic ginger paste in lieu of diced garlic and ginger

      Sometimes I will do a fine dice of fresh red thai chilies and add those in at the same time I add the garlic, potatoes and chickpeas.

      4 Modern Run & Guns to Keep Your Sights On

      4 Modern Run & Guns to Keep Your Sights On

      I don’t know about you, but I could play the Metal Slug series for the rest of eternity. The games are timeless run & gun shooters featuring some of the best pixel art to ever grace a 16-bit arcade screen.

      But only playing Metal Slug would be like only eating tacos every day. Sure, you’re consuming the pinnacle of food, but a little variety in your diet never hurt anyone and will make you a more interesting person. Also, think about what you’re doing to your waistline.

      So, where does one go these days when they need an injection of some old fashioned arcade run & gun action? We’ve got a few suggestions to keep your sights on.

       

       

       

      Blazing Chrome

      While the original Contra is a classic, it’s hard to deny the series was really rocking it during the 16-bit era. The double strike of Contra 3: Alien Wars for the Super Nintendo and Contra: Hard Corps for the Genesis offered up some unforgettable experiences packed with that classic ‘90s attitude.

      The team at JoyMasher picks up the torch where Konami left it all those years ago and runs with it in Blazing Chrome. They’re delivering some impactful run & gun, spiced with that delicious ‘tude. It has everything you’ve come to expect from the genre: fast-paced gameplay, an arsenal of cool weapons, and some deliciously retro pixel-art.

       

       

       

      Iron Meat

      From Russia with love, Iron Meat is delivered by Ivan Suvorov and comes with a heaping helping of sidescrolling violence. Taking place in a cyberpunk hellscape, Iron Meat bills itself as a grindhouse gunner, bringing with it all the delicious gore that title entails.

      Currently still in the development phase, a demo of Iron Meat is available for you to taste test. It’s currently single-player only, but couch co-op is planned for the future.

       

       

       

      Huntdown

      Huntdown is an absolute killer time. Developed by Easy Trigger Games, this run & gun hits the cyberpunk streets to deliver explosive action. A little bit of Contra and a dash of Gunstar Heroes makes this game a gem too tantalizing to not dig up. It’s no wonder it was critically acclaimed at release!

      With co-op action, 20 levels, 3 playable characters and a whole heap of baddies, this game is looking like non-stop action. It certainly helps that its arcade inspired pixel-art graphics are gorgeous and the style is just dripping with personality.

       

       

       

      Bite The Bullet

      Fresh off the grill and ready for your thumbs, Bite the Bullet is Mega Cat Studios’ very own love letter to the run & gun genre. Taking the venerable action gameplay and giving it a twist with some Rogue elements, a smattering of RPG elements, and a whole lot of gluttony, Bite the Bullet is the world’s very first run & gun & eat.

      You heard right, don’t just gun down those zombies -- put them in your belly! Chomp down on everything you slay; from robots to unimaginable monstrosities. What will that do to your waistline? Who cares! It’s nutrients! Devour everything in sight.

      Bite the Bullet is now available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.

      Yet the run & gun genre is a vast, deep ocean and new drops are falling into it every day. We’re fans, too! Got any suggestions for us? We’d be interested to hear!

      Weekly Dose of Gaming News - RockyNoHands signed to Luminosity Gaming

      Weekly Dose of Gaming News - RockyNoHands signed to Luminosity Gaming
      The 31-year-old streamer plays mostly first-person shooters like Fortnite, PUBG,

      Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare and Warzone. Oh, and he also happens to be paralyzed from the neck down. He uses a quad stick that he controls with his mouth to play and has made it into the Guinness World Records this year for getting the most victory royales in Fortnite using a quad stick, and the most eliminations in a Fortnite Battle Royale using a quad stick.

      Read more

      Have you considered inviting a Famicom into your home?

      Have you considered inviting a Famicom into your home?

       

      Do you own an NES? Do you love your NES? Are you all about those 8-bits? That 6502 processor? That majestic grey slab?

      It’s hard not to. Just look at all those great games. From Super Mario Bros., to Castlevania, to Mega Man, to Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition, it was a library packed with bright stars and hidden gems. Maybe you’ve played them all. Maybe you’re thinking that the system just doesn’t have anything more to offer.

      What if I told you there was a whole different world of NES games that you may have never even heard of or considered? Such a place exists. It’s called Japan and they kept a lot of good stuff to themselves. Only their console of choice was a bit different, it was called the Famicom and it only differed in small ways from our familiar NES.

       

       

      The main differences merely come down to form factor. The Famicom looks entirely different from the NES to the point where you wouldn’t recognize the two are basically the same system. The Famicom has a toy-like appearance, with a brighter red and beige colour scheme and a prominent eject button. The controllers are hard-wired in and their cords are ridiculously short, better accommodating a Japanese living room.

      In terms of technology, the Famicom is practically identical to the NES with some minor differences. The one change that prevents you from sticking a Famicom cartridge into your NES (without an adapter) is the addition of the 10NES lockout chip, which Nintendo used to prevent developers from releasing games on their own cartridges. The result is the NES cartridge uses a 72-pin connector, whereas the Famicom only has 60 pins.

       

       

      So why not just use an adapter to play all your Famicom games on an NES? You can do that, but there’s a few differences to be aware of.

      The Famicom includes a microphone on the second player controller. While the technology is too limited to really do much with it, it is utilized in such games as The Legend of Zelda and Ganbare Goemon. Most prominently, it’s usage is found in Takeshi no Chousenjou in a puzzle where you must sing karaoke. However, you probably don’t want to play that particular game, as it was designed specifically to make players miserable.

      Then, of course, there’s the Famicom Disk System, an add-on that allows you to play various games off specialized floppy disks. This little corner of the Japanese library never received a comparable attachment in the west, but some of its more prominent games, including Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, and Metroid, all found their way to their own grey slabs of plastic.

       

       

      One sacrifice that had to be made in porting them, however, is that they lose access to one special feature; an additional sound channel. A casualty in the switch to a 72-pin format, this extra sound channel allowed for more depth to be added to soundtracks like Metroid’s. Konami, in particular, would also release custom cartridges with added sound chips that again added extra sound channels. The most prominent example of this is the Japanese version of Castlevania 3, Akumajou Densetsu.

      Those may seem like minor differences that can easily be overlooked, and really, they are. However, there’s still the matter of the games that didn’t cross the pond to North America. As part of their licensing deal, Nintendo of America limited publishers to only 5 releases a year. This meant prominent publishers like Konami withheld such titles as Getsu Fuuma Den and the Ganbare Goemon series in favour of licensed games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

      There are a lot of games that remained locked in their country of origin that are entirely worth playing, even for monolingual gamers. You can even find games by Nintendo themselves like Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally and Joy Mecha Fight never crossed the pond. Personal favourites like Crisis Force and Challenger, are somewhat unheard of over here, but are completely worth playing.

      So maybe check out a Famicom when you have the chance, and if you already have, are there any games that you consider your favourite?