There is no audience and yet I must type. (Now with games!)

I Suck.

2011-10-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

Well, better late than never I guess!

Yeah, it's been over a year since my last post on here, and I apologize for that. I need to periodically update this from time to time, if anything, just so that it makes good practice.

It would be impossible to talk about everything that's happened in the time since my last post. Suffice to say, I'm still alive, so I guess that's a good thing. Also, I'm now attending university again, so I hope that this will lead to something good. It feels odd, especially at my age, going back to school, but so far, it's manageable. I also recently got student financial assistance, so I'll be putting that money to good use, once I'm able to get access to the funds, that is.

As I look at what I wrote in my last post in regards to what games I was playing, I can at least say that I finally finished off Final Fantasy XIII. It might not have been the best Final Fantasy to have been released, but it was decent. I give credit to Square Enix to try and take the Final Fantasy franchise in a new direction, but there were other issues that they hopefully resolve in their upcoming sequel, Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Other than that, I haven't finished the other titles on my launchpad. I lent out Lost Odyssey, and I just can't seem to get into Kingdom Hearts because of that stupid flying bit. I had to restart Prince of Persia from the beginning because I forgot how to play the damn game, and I seem to have hit a bit of a roadblock in Final Fantasy IV, in that the game's difficulty curve has multiplied by a factor of 10. I do, however, hope that I can finish that game sometime this year.

That's about it for now, I guess. I do have a project that I need to start working on today or tomorrow, so I might not post any updates until after the submission date. I just hope I don't procrastinate on that. That would be "fatal" to my grade.

A post of Substance!

2010-07-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

...........Or not.

Although, I did manage to finally play AND finish Chrono Trigger. Finally, I got to see what all the hype was about. Was I disappointed?

Not really. It was good for what it was. I think I would have appreciated it more had I played it back when it was first released. It certainly fit in with my schedule, and I was able to knock it off in 25 or so hours (that was with a bit of grinding just to make sure I didn't have any trouble towards the end). Overall, it was very enjoyable, and I enjoyed the ending that I got.

I also managed to get rid of another thorn in my gaming backside by completing Dead Rising for the Xbox 360. Final boss fight was a bit of a challenge, in part due to having to do 2 sections prior to it without being able to save in between. That was slightly annoying, however, the game was gracious enough to allow me to regain my health back in between stages, which was a welcome surprise.

Now, I'm really hoping that I can get the ball rolling and finish off Lost Odyssey as well as Kingdom Hearts, but I'm not optimistic, especially for Kingdom Hearts. I seem to lose interest as soon as I load up the game. I'll have to get over that hump sooner or later if I want to put it in my completed pile.

As it stands right now:

PS3: Prince of Persia, Final Fantasy 13
Xbox 360: Lost Odyssey
Nintendo DS: Final Fantasy 4
PS2: Kingdom Hearts

Most of these games have been collecting dust for a while, so I need to spend some time soon to get them over and done with.

Did I also mention that by the time this post was made, Starcraft II has just been released, and my collector's edition is sitting in my closet, unopened?

Sigh.

A Second Post In A Month? I'm On A Roll!

2010-04-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was heading to my graduation ceremony in the US last week, and I got back last night.

The ceremony itself wasn't too bad, the food was pretty good. Overall, it was enjoyable. I wasn't able to really go out anywhere, but driving 8 hours straight really took it out of me. I was, however, able to try out something that I had been wanting to try out ever since I first heard of it. Yes, I got some looks from my family for actually driving out to getting one, but luckily it was only about 2 minutes away from the hotel, and I just had to know how it tasted. And of course, I'm talking about the KFC Double Down.

About a year ago, I heard about videos on the internet showing people "Doubling Down" on their meal, and I had always wondered what they were talking about. Once I found out where the DD phenomenon came from, I won't lie and say that I was very interested in trying it out. Unfortunately, even though it was announced that it would be rolled out from its test stages to nationwide in the US, it would not be the case for Canada, and a recent article in the Toronto dashed any hopes I had for it coming north of the border, when a spokesman for KFC confirmed that.

Going to the US for my graduation was my only chance at being able to try it out. Once I got it, I took a couple of images of it to show how it looked, just in case anyone was wondering. If you're a health nut or on a diet, look away now:

This is how it first looked when I opened the carton it was in, and this is what it looked like on picking it up:

Yep, that's two pieces of Original Recipe Chicken (I'm pretty sure they were pieces of white meat), which act as the "bread" of the sandwich, and in between those, lay two slices of cheese and bacon.

Opinions on this sandwich vary, from people saying that it's really good, to those who have said it's awful, to those who even say that it perfectly captures the problems that America has when it comes to obesity.

After trying it, I do have to say that I was a bit surprised by it. Yes, it was salty. There's so much salt in it, in fact, that they say that one sandwich has 1,380 milligrams of sodium which is already the limits for what they recommend as part of your daily intake (which ironically, is less than the amount of sodium in their grilled version. Yes, the grilled version has more sodium in it, if you can believe it).

It was also very greasy. I normally have an aversion to touching my food, so you can imagine how I felt when having to handle this grease pit. That shitty piece of paper that covered the Double Down did nothing to stop the flow of oil spreading all over my fingers. To top it off, the store forgot to provide any wet-naps or napkins of any sort, so I had to make sure I didn't touch anything else in the meantime until I could get myself to a sink and some soap.

However, all that aside, it was pretty tasty. Perhaps it was because it was made when I ordered it, and it wasn't lying around on a heating tray, but the meat was very juicy and the cheese complimented the chicken pretty well. I could barely taste any of the bacon, so powerful was the chicken and salt, but other than that, I thought it wasn't too bad. If it ever does come to Canada, I doubt that I would buy it, just for the fact that the sodium content is way too high, but it was worth trying out once, just to say that I was brave enough to taste it.

On the gaming side, I finished up Nexus as well, and although the story made little sense towards the end, it was a very enjoyable experience. I'm probably going to focus on a console game now, since all my gaming time has been devoted to PC games lately.

I was going to name this post "I Just Double Downed" but foresight taught me to google it beforehand just to be safe, and Urban Dictionary provided me with enough definitions to go with a different one.

D'oh!

2010-04-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

I really have no excuse for letting a year pass between posts. Truth be told, I sorta forgot about this place. Can you really blame me? It's not like anyone reads this (I still have my suspicions about the commenter on my last post, yes, I'm talking to you, RyanL, if that is indeed, your real name!).

It would be next to impossible to go through whats happened to me in the past year, but suffice to say there have been some ups and downs (more downs that I would have liked), but I'm still around and kicking, so I guess that's good. I guess I should mention that my degree was conferred on me, and I'll actually be heading down to the US this week for the graduation ceremony. Yay, me!

But enough about me, lets get onto the most important part, and that's about games.....

GAAAAMMES.

I figure the best way to make use of this new entry, is to go through my previous post and see if anything had changed from one year ago. To be honest, I'm a little surprised that there have, indeed, been a few changes here and there.

First, and foremost, one of the first things I talked (or lamented over, I guess it depends on how you look at it) about was my PC and how it was getting on in terms of its age. Well, I can now report that I now have a new PC, which has allowed me to finally start playing some of those PC games that I've had on the back-burner for oh, so long.

The biggest benefit out of all of this is that I don't have to worry about my PC crashing on me every hour or so anymore, or bother with the other "quirks" that came with having a computer that old.

I also mentioned a list of games that I had been playing, or had "on the launchpad", which were at the time:

Playstation 3: Ninja Gaiden Sigma
Xbox 360: Lost Odyssey
Nintendo Wii: The House of the Dead 2&3 Return/Zack And Wiki
Nintendo DS: Retro Game Challenge (luckily I find myself playing this)
PSP: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Playstation 2: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Prophecy
Dreamcast: Shenmue II
PC: World of Goo

So, what's happened in the year since I made this list? Surprisingly, more than what even I would have assumed.

I finished Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Retro Game Challenge (great game by the way!), and Jak and Daxter. Two out of those three games happened to be titles which I had on the backlog for years (and I do mean years), so it felt great to finally get them out of the way. I also managed to finish off other games burning a hole in my backlog pile like Super Paper Mario Wii, Gears of War 2, Psychonauts, and most recently, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky.

Unfortunately, I've yet to finish off the others listed, and in the case of World of Goo, lost all of my save games due when I had to install my new OS. I'll probably get to it when I have more time.

MMO wise, I re-upped my subscription for Final Fantasy XI (again), but the recent announcement that they'll be increasing the level cap from 75 to 99 might be all the motivation I need to stop playing. It took me forever to get to 75, and even then, I managed to do that barely. I don't think I have it in me anymore to devote that kind of time to level grinding.

Final Fantasy XIV is something that I'm interested in learning more about, especially since I hear it's much more casual friendly, compared to XI, but it's all wait and see at this point.

I also signed up for Star Trek Online, but I'm already regretting that decision. During the beta, I did play the heck out of it, but when that initial launch week came by, I felt myself being more and more uninterested with how the game was structured, especially having to deal with instanced area after instanced area. I've probably played it 4-5 times post-launch, and that's about it. Perhaps it's due to my long years of playing Final Fantasy XI, but in the case of that game, in return for a monthly fee, I managed to get a vast, open world, full of danger and possibilities, which was, during my heyday playing it, worth the expense. In the case of STO, however, this game is more or less instanced area after instanced area, with about 20-30 people max (I'm not entirely sure of the total number per "zone", but there aren't many). I guess Guild Wars spoiled me in that respect, since they're doing pretty much what STO is doing, and that is to offer the same kind of instanced environment, the only difference being that Guild Wars doesn't charge a monthly fee, while STO does. I do realize though that with the monthly fee STO charges, that this will lead to new content being put out at regular intervals, which obviously works in STO's favor, since there hasn't been anything new on the Guild Wars front for the past couple of years now. Still, when it comes to the overall game world, STO just doesn't feel that "grand" in scale. I don't have that same feeling of awe when I travel around in STO, unlike the way I felt when I walked into the Hall of the Gods, which eventually took me to "Sky", and in the case of the Chains of Promanthia expansion, traveling around "Sea" for the first time. STO's apparent initial lack of content for the Klingon's has also been somewhat of a deterrent for me as well. There are other reasons for my apparent dislike of STO, but that'll make this post drag on longer than it really needs to, so it might be the topic of a post down the road. Hell, I might even start playing it again and ignore the problems I have with it personally.

Oh, I was never able to sell that copy of Warhammer Online, and with the recent fiasco involving people over billed at least 14 times or more, I seriously doubt that I'll be selling it at anywhere near the price I originally bought it for. Now that I think about it, selling it at all would be a miracle at this point. Ah well, at least it looks nice on my shelf.

As for my last bit in my past blog, I guess I haven't outgrown games, especially since I got my new PC. Being able to finish off games that I've had sitting on my shelf for a while, like Mass Effect, and being able to complete more recently released titles, like Dragon Age: Origins is so awesome.

If I were to make a current "launchpad" of games that I'm currently playing through, it would look a lot like this:

PC: Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
Playstation 3: Nothing!
Xbox 360: Lost Odyssey
Nintendo Wii: Nothing!
Nintendo DS: Hotel Dusk: Room 215
PSP: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Playstation 2: Yakuza 2
Dreamcast: Shenmue II

Yes, I do have games on the shelf for the entries listed with "Nothing!" entered, but it just means that I'll only really move onto those platforms when I finish another game platform from the same company (Ps2, Ps3, etc). Also, some of the titles that are still there from my previous list means I haven't touched the system since I've been trying to focus more on games that I can finish off easily.

I should mention that I would have finished off Yakuza 2, but due to a save game bug, either on Yakuza 2's part or on my PS3's part, my save game became corrupted, and I lost all of my progress, forcing me to restart everything from the beginning. It was a real kick to the gut to have 10+ hours of game play go down the tubes. I wanted to finish the game before Yakuza 3 was released over here, but that unfortunately didn't happen. I'll try it again when I feel like it.

I should also mention that a friend lent me his old SNES, with his games, so I'll be checking those out once I finish off Nexus. I'll probably start first on CHRONO TRIGGER (yes, it's that epic a game that it must be in capital letters).

Well, that's about it for me in this post. No guarantees, but I'll try to post on here more often. If anything, it'll help improve my typing skills.

A post? April Fools!... wait..

2009-04-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, I rearranged the furniture in my room, so now it looks a bit more spacious than before, and I have my consoles, both current and old, nicely sitting on a stand. I'll take a picture of it to show how it looks now.

I also hooked up my laptop (well, my cousin's laptop, which I'm now using since he doesn't use it anymore) to my TV and somehow managed to find an audio cable to connect the computer to the TV, so now I have a sort of HTPC setup going, although it's not much to write about, it's still better than what I had before, and it's a far sight better than my desktop when it comes to mkv videos, which just stutter on my old computer.

Speaking of my crappy desktop, I was at the supermarket, and I came across PC Gamer's latest mag about buying/upgrading to a newer computer, and they had this chart, where they had CPU's and Videocards listed from the Top of the line to the crappy of the crappy, and guess what? My CPU was 3rd!

From the bottom.

Not that was unexpected. The computer is older than 5 years, which in computer language means it's already on life support. It doesn't work as well as it should of course, and it has it's problems, namely:

- Even though I use a USB keyboard (Logitech G15), I still have to keep my PS/2 keyboard plugged in, otherwise it won't boot up. Annoying.

- My computer refuses to bootup using the DVI connection and will only display on the VGA connection, until the Windows "Welcome" message pops up, at which the DVI connection will then activate. This has resulted in my having to still have my old 17" LG monitor hooked up just so that I can see if there's an issue on bootup with my computer. I read that a possible reason is due to a refresh issue, where the DVI just isn't set properly, and that I have to go to my BIOS to change some settings, but frankly, the old girl is at the stage where this is the least of my problems.

- There are times where it just doesn't detect either my HDD or DVD-ROM drive on startup. I have to open up the case just to pull out the IDE cable, and pop it back in.

Those are just some of the problems I still have with this. But still, with all that to write about, it still has served me well all these years, and still can run for days at a time (that might be why I have these issues in the first place, but hey, I need to download).

I also seem to have become used to the hum that the computer makes, so much so that I don't think I can have a good night's sleep without it being on. I wonder if anyone else has that problem.

I recently formatted the computer, and along with removing 2 out of the 3 HDD's to reduce power consumption (I didn't really need them anymore, especially the 20 gig SAMSUNG HDD, which has been a part of this computer since I bought it in INDIA), and found some RAM in a box in my basement, which as it turns out, was slightly better than my existing ram, although one of the sticks seems to be bad, resulting in a BSOD everytime it gets passed the windows bootup, but I can't complain about that really.

I mentioned earlier I was at the supermarket. I actually went there to return a 6 foot HDMI - DVI cable, because at $40.00, it was a bit pricey. I went to Canada Computers, and I ended up buying a 10 foot cable for only 24 dollars. Could have possibly gotten a cheaper cable, especially if I went around on Craigslist, but I'd probably waste more money on gas driving to get the cable itself. Anyways, the cable I got works well, and it's now hooked up to the laptop. I'm trying to figure out an optimal way to utilize the new setup so I can use the big monitor to play games like Team Fortress 2.

Speaking of games, I'm currently playing Retro Game Challenge for the Nintendo DS, which, if you haven't already done so, please head to your nearest game store and pick up a copy. If you're a fan of 8-bit games, then I can't recommend this game enough. It's a nostalgia trip and then some. Playing this has even opened my eyes to the Japanese TV show that the game is based from, called Game Center CX, where a japanese celebrity by the name of Shinya Arino has to play old 8-bit Famicom (NES) games and complete different "challenges" for them. Watching the series has been one huge nostalgia trip for me, and I find myself wanting to play older games, just for the fact that there were so many titles that I missed out on when I was a child.

However, other than my renewed urges to play old video games, I find myself stalled when it comes to the games on my shelf of backlog. I'll be taking a picture of the shelf soon, but as it stands right now, I seem to have lost interest in playing many of the games I'm going through right now. The best way I can describe is like a "Gamers' Block", where I just can't find it within myself to pickup a controller and bootup a game to play through.

Right now on the launchpad waiting to be played I have:

Playstation 3: Ninja Gaiden Sigma
Xbox 360: Lost Odyssey
Nintendo Wii: The House of the Dead 2&3 Return/Zack And Wiki
Nintendo DS: Retro Game Challenge (luckily I find myself playing this)
PSP: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Playstation 2: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Prophecy
Dreamcast: Shenmue II
PC: World of Goo

On the MMO front, I cancelled my ID's for Final Fantasy XI again, this time, I'm seriously considering not renewing it and letting my character be wiped out. It's sad, since Stickler has been with me since 2002, and I do wish I had the opportunity to finish some of the storyline sagas (Chains of Promantia especially since I was only a couple of missions away from completing it), but I did manage to get my main goal out of the way, which was to hit level 75, so I don't really have any regrets now. Still, knowing how I am, I'm probably going to renew it just before that 3 month period passes, unless of course, I forget completely.

I also decided to put my unopened copy of Warhammer Online for sale. Crappy desktop aside, I just didn't feel like I could get into another MMO. I hope it sells. I've sold a couple of old games I've had lying around, and even a new game which I hadn't opened (I could never get into Pokemon for some reason), all proceeds going into buying a new computer at some point.

Well, that brings me to the end of this post. So many games to play through, and other than Retro Game Challenge, I don't even bother looking at the other games. I hope when I do complete RGC, that I'll have a renewed focus on these other titles that I have yet to complete.

This could also mean that I've "outgrown" video games, and I don't find myself entranced with it as I once did. It's a scary thought.

A post? ZOMG!

2009-02-08T16:24:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's been a while since I posted here, and by that I mean a post which was actually about games, not just profanity towards a video games store. But now I'm able to sit down and take a moment to talk about why it's been so long since I last posted here.

To make it short, Back in September, I went to visit my relatives in India for about 2 weeks and ended up staying there for 4 1/2 months. To say it wasn't trying is a bit of an understatement. I only packed enough clothes in a small suitcase for 2 weeks. It was hard, but through heat and illness, I managed to pull it off with some shred of sanity remaining intact. It wasn't without it's toll, however, as my health, as I stated earlier was affected during my stay, main problem being that I developed kidney stones, and then developed other health ailments which only complicated the matter. The good thing is that the stones passed (not without its share of screaming) and I'm now doing much better, especially now that I'm back in Canada.

I should point out that there was a casualty during my stay there. My poor, old Acer laptop that has been faithfully working since I bought it back in 2004 finally crapped out on me, a victim of the hot temperatures combined with an already hot video card mixed in with a 3-D application that was a bit of a resource hog, only made a volatile situation even worse. It finally caused a burn out of the laptop V-RAm which, while it's still "working", any program with any 3-D application applied to it (i.e: game)will not work anymore, not to mention the blue haze and pixels all over the screen, just lead to it's eventual demise. Oh well, you handled well while you did, and helped me get through some tough times. Not only that, I managed to finish off a couple of games thanks to you!

Since I was in India for so long, my choices were rather limited, leaving me with little option but to start playing some of the older titles I had lying around, and thankfully that's where a site like Good Old Games (http://www.gog.com) came in handy. Through that website, I was able to download a number of classic games, some of which I had played before, and others I had only heard of, and even a couple I had never seen before.

This post could drag on forever, so i'll make it brief:

- Original War (An RTS with RPG like qualities which made it unique)
- Hostile Waters (Another RTS hybrid, and a totally enjoyable game. I'm suprised I never played it before)
- Simon the Sorceror 1 and 2: I finished one, and it was a funny point and click adventure. I look forward to seeing how 2 is.

There were other titles I bought, but these were the titles I played through and completed.

I also played a bit of my old collection of games which I had left in India, notably, Freespace 2, and Gabriel Knight 1, and it was a great nostalgia trip.

I came back to Canada in the end January, and I've been here since.

I've adjusted well enough to home, and it's great to be back. I think that there's just been so much that's happened in the time between posts that it would be impossible to recount most, if not all of what happened to me, in terms of my life as well as gaming. I hope that I can sorta "reboot" the blog and start fresh.

Till next time then.

Grr.

2008-12-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

I came off a pretty long hiatus (I was going to make a long post about why I was gone for so long but this took precedence), just to make this post and say:

FUCK YOU, EB GAMES.

FUCK YOU.

Oh, before I forget:

FUCK YOU GAMESTOP FOR RUINING EB GAMES AND MAKING IT THE SAME KIND OF PIECE OF SHIT COMPANY THAT YOU ARE.

In Space, no one can hear you click......

2008-09-01T18:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I've managed to make another post in a relatively short time, but this one will be shorter than my previous posts in that I won't have to type as much. I had been typing my impressions of a few games I've been finishing on the animeNfo forums, so I figure I might as well copy and paste them here to save me some time, and to get you, the peanut gallery up to speed on my latest gaming exploits.

Before that though, I'll just mention that I finally finished Anachronox and all I can say is Wow, and 'it's too bad there won't be a sequel'. I liked the game so much, I went around the net and hunted for a copy of the Anachronox DVD where someone managed to put together all the cutscenes from the game into a feature length movie. It's a great watch.

Anyways, onto what i've been playing:

Space Siege

I finally caved and against I decided to get a copy of Space Siege. This was the first game in a very long time that I didn't go and pick up in the store or from steam, if you know what I mean.

Overall, It wasn't that bad. It certainly wasn't an amazing game, but it was good enough that I played it pretty much non-stop until I finished it a couple of hours ago. It's been panned by critics and was given a somewhat mediocre score overall, but I honestly felt it wasn't as bad as they said it was. Sure there was room for improvement in the control scheme, and the story, while the broader aspect of it was intriguing, the smaller subplots during the game, character interactions and dialogue was sub-par, which was surprising given the normally good games that come from Gas Powered Games. If they ever do decide to make a sequel, I do hope they invest more time in these aspects. They should also invest some time in the control scheme. I enjoy games like this since it's in the same vein as Dungeon Siege or Diablo, but at times the control scheme did get frustrating during intense battles and I do agree with some gripes on the internet that they should probably have introduced an alternative control scheme as an option for those users who don't like to click around alot.

In the end, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who didn't like Dungeon Siege, or even Diablo. If you did like Dungeon Siege, then you'll probably enjoy Space Siege. Just don't expect too much from it. Even though I finished it, I'll still probably buy it just to support Gas Powered Games for trying to make a Sci-Fi based Dungeon Siege. But I'll wait until it drops to a bargain basement price. On that note, I should probably start playing the original Dungeon Siege and the sequel.

Castle Crashers

The next game I went through was Castle Crashers on the XBLA. Another awesome title from The Behemoth, and what makes it more amazing is that I was able to acutally finish the game, unlike their previous title, Alien Hominid. Lets just say with Alien Hominid, I didn't get very farm and personally, it took frustration to new heights. I managed to finish it in a respectable time, and at the time when I quit I was ranked 4000 or so out of a 100,000 players, which wasn't too shabby if I might say so. People seem to be complaining about the price point, but let me tell you. Even though I had heard so much about the game, and had intended to buy it right away, on its release, i thought I should try the demo to see how it was just to make sure. Well, when the game stopped to let you know that you should buy the game to keep playing, I didn't even hesitate and purchased the full version. I found the game that enjoyable.

Armed Assault: Gold Edition

The 3rd game I went through was Armed Assault, made by Bohemia Interactive, the creators of Operation: Flashpoint. This game is a in a nutshell, HARD. Both as a consequence of design and a multitude of bugs, I had to literally gind my teeth playing the missions, and some of the night time solo missions made me want to pull out my hair, if I had any to begin with that is, they were so gosh darn difficult. In the end though, I prevailed and I can put this title away. Now, If I could only make that same statment with Ninja Gaiden Sigma...

Well that's about all for now. I was playing a bit of Dead Rising, and I've restarted playing Halo 3 multiplayer again, but I'm going to move onto other games that I think I can finish in a reasonable amount of time and trade them back in.

What's new Pussycat?

2008-08-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

As you can tell it's been a while since my last update. I guess I should get you all (nobody) up to speed by saying that I finally finished my clinical rotations! Woo! unemployment!

Seriously, I'm really happy and relieved I finally got this monkey off my back.

I did manage to get a bit of a parting gift though:

The Samsung 46 inch 750 Series LCD TV. An absoute piece of beauty. I had always been wanting to get a TV before I left the US, but never followed through until I found a price from amazon I just couldn't resist. A good thing too, since it was about $1000 cheaper than Best Buy or Future Shop in Canada, and Amazon had no tax and free shipping! It's now sitting in my room, and it's absurdely big. I need to figure out how to arrange my room properly before it gets out of hand.

My main worry was bringing this across the border. My brother told me that while US customs are looking for terrorists or criminals, Canadaian customs are more focused on how much duty they can get from Canadians bringing back goodies.

However, when I got to the border I guess the border guard either didn't notice the gigantic white covered object sitting in my back seat or didn't care, because as soon as I told her I was coming home from finishing my rotations, all she asked if there was anything I needed to give her, I said "Yes, my visa", which she took from me, and said I could go. All that worrying for nothing.

Other that that not much else has changed, so I might as well go on with the part that's important. the games!

Bit of bad news: I ended up buying ALOT more games than I think i'm going to be able to finish. But if anything, I'll probably just give up, trade them in for credit and assume the ending was good. I can't really afford to devote all this time to my collection anymore.

Another bit of bad news: I've become addicted to another MMO. This time it's Football Manager Live. The premise is simple. Take football Manager, dumb it down a little, and make it online. Instead of playing against computer opponents, you're playing against other people who manage their own teams. Also, it'll have the full roster of real players, but time moves much faster in the game, in that a month in the real world is a full season. Basically each player ages per month so eventually it'll be filled with simulated players eventually. I'll have to get my scouting skills up to take full advantage of that.

Overall though the game is fun, real fun, but it really sucks away the time, and unlike other MMO's you really do need to keep playing, otherwise your team will fall into the crapper, and all your players will end up leaving. Even casual playing isn't recommended, this game is for moderates to hardcore players.

Truth be told: I'm actually sharing the account with a friend of mine. I was hoping he'd be able to take care more of the "managerial" side of things like getting players and setting up tactics, while I played the games whenever he wasn't around, since I'm not that "well-versed" when it comes to football management. However, this was at a "bad" moment of his life" as he was getting married, so he wasn't able to devote any real time to the game, which was understandable. This led to the unfortunate result of me having to do everything after he had to stop playing. Lets just say the team is surviving by its teeth right now. At least it's not in the gutter.. yet. I'm hoping this gets launched soon so that I'll be forced to not play it anymore. This game is killing me and I can't stop myself.

I also decided to finish off the games which I've been playing but had to stop whenever I had to go back to the US or was just plain too busy. Now that I have some free time on my hands I figure I should see how far I can get.

I managed to complete two games that I had on my shelf which would fit in this category.

Lair and Eternal Sonata were two games where I had a love-hate relationship with.

Both games interestingly enough where two titles where I absolutely loved the Soundtrack and visuals. I can't say enough about how well done both titles musical scores, especially in the case of Eternal Sonata. Having Chopin's music play for you during the game was an extra treat. Lair's musical score which was on par if not better than any major motion picture really carried the game.

Now, both games had somewhat big flaws. In the case of Eternal Sonata, it was its story. Some people complain that the game itself was too short, especially for a JRPG. Personally, I didn't mind that, since I have so many games to complete, however, the story itself seemed a tad rushed, about 3/4 of the story in. At that point it seemed like when the story was about to become an epic tale, the story gets a case of diarrhea and the plot moves at a very quick place, and characters (especially the villians) meet their end in the most anti-climatic fashion. It did seem the devs Tri-cresendo, had something with the premise of the game (the story appears to take place within the dream world of a dying Chopin), but for whatever reason, they decided to tie up things somewhat abruptly, and it only left me feeling slightly disappointed and wanting more from the game. Maybe that was their intent if they're planning a sequel. Overall though, I enjoyed it.

Now to Lair, while the story and plot was alright (each mission I completed did leave me wanting to know more about how it was going to turn out), the control scheme was the biggest drawback to the game. The game was universally panned for the dev's apparently die-hard stance on using the sixaxis control scheme for its movement. This was reflected in the poor scores it received from review websites, namely IGN in a score of 4.9 (I believe), while many gamers either loved the contol scheme, or absolutely hated the scheme with a passion.

Long after its release though, Factor 5 (the developers of Lair) introduced a free download which, not only adding a bit of extras (two dragons among others) it also added the long-awaited option of analog control to the game. It was at this time I decided to pick up the game used and try it out.

I didn't play the game with the sixaxis control scheme and straight away used the analog function. I have to admit, using the directional pad isn't bad, but there are some flaws to it. The control scheme isn't perfect by any means, and there are times where locking on a target and have an adverse effect to my dragon's movement, either the dragon will climb up or down without my input, or it'll move very slowly in the case when I snare a Warbeast to drag it to the ground (similar to The Empire Strikes Back when Luke snares the AT-AT with his harpoon gun and brings it to the ground). I've died quite a few times whenever I had to snare a warbeast because it slowed down at just the wrong moment. There were a couple of other complaints, but even with my own issues with the game, flying the dragon was enjoyable overall, although slightly annoying.

Currently I'm in the process of playing through these games:

xbox360 - Dead Rising
PS2 - The Red Star
Multiplayer game - Battlefield: Bad Company

Dead rising is another game that I would put in the category of "playing in spurts", and I'm tryng to finish that off. The red Star seems to be an enjoyable pseudo platformer/shooter and it's worth the 9 bucks i spent on it. My multiplayer game is Battlefield: Bad company. I've been playing the game multiplayer since the pre-order beta was up, and I've been having a blast with it. In fact, I've played more of the multiplayer and barely any of the single player campaign. This is the first game where I've changed my stance on finishing a game first before going into the multiplayer aspect.

You might think that my game buying days are numbered since I'm back home and I tend to be more "Conservative" up here, but you can now add this to the list:

Yep, you read it. Myst. A game series I swore to myself that I would never pick up since thought it was pure crap. Honestly, I was on amazon.ca buying a Blu-ray to calibrate the new TV and opted to pick this up since it was cheap and both items together would have given me free shipping.

Well, that's all for now, Hope to make a few more updates before the year is out. Ha Ha Ha.

Whoah.

2008-05-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post. In that time I went back home to visit my family, and will be returning back to the U.S. for my last 8 weeks. After that, that'll be all she wrote in terms of my stay in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Will I miss the place? Somewhat. The people for the most part, were very friendly, and I didn't have any real bad experiences. Also, being there alone was somewhat fun, although not having many people to talk to, outside of instant messaging friends, or talking to my family was somewhat sad, but for the most part, I really don't have any complaints. I do regret not really going around the city and getting to know where I spent almost 3 years of my life better. I do think I should have went to more clubs and met more people. I do kinda regret that.

Anyways, in terms of gaming, since I've been back in Toronto, there was less emphasis on me purchasing games, and more on playing the games I had accumulated, even finishing one or two in that time.

I think the biggest change though, is that I've started playing Final Fantasy XI again on a slightly more regular basis. I'm starting to do a few things with some old friends and i'm slowly but surely starting to have fun playing it, which was something I had missed for a long time. I doubt if i'll ever go back to the hours upon hours I invested in the game, back during its heyday, but in the brief moments I have had to play it, I've managed to accomplish quite a bit.

I also started playing World of Warcraft...... on a free server. Yes, I do realize it's a private server, but I wanted to see if there had been any real changes to the game since I played it during the beta. Suffice to say, I wasn't too impressed with how the game is. Perhaps it was due to the lack of people on the private server (only 70-100 people are online at any given time), but I just couldn't get used to the atmosphere. Maybe it'll grow on me.

.....And I just recieved a message from a friend I convinced to join me on the server that he'll be uninstalling the copy of WoW i gave him because it was taking up too much space, and since we weren't playing it there wasn't much point in keeping it. I guess that pretty much answers my question if i'll keep playing it.

Fight on Men, FIGHT!... hey why am I the only one who's killing them?

2008-03-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hoo-boy. I haven't had time to do anything in the past month so far with work, which has been killing me. Suffice to say, I've had little time to play games, and even then, those games I've been playing were completed in no-time. I'll start off with what I picked up.

Frontlines: Fuel Of War

I originally bought the game primarily because I was intrigued by the plot. The world's oil supplies have all but dried up, and the nations of the world, after setting their allegiances now get ready to start World War III over the Caspian, but after speaking to a friend who had it as well, opted to return it for a refund. I ended up renting the game, and boy was I glad I got my money back. That's not to say it's a terrible game by any means, it just wasn't my cup of tea. The single-player campaign was a let down, especially since it was a single player version of "Battlefield". I guess they were trying to make the missions more open-ended, that there are multiple ways to complete an objective, but while great in theory, it never pans out in the finished product, and my AI teammates are of no help. They're pretty much there to be a part of the ambience, while you have to go commando and take out everyone. Even the driving sequences can be frustrating as the AI tank s on your side turn out to be non-existant as all the enemies have all their gunsight trained on you, and they don't even take advantage of that. They just roll around doing little or nothing in the way of completing the objective. The final mission was a huge letdown as well, as my squad suddenly disappeared and I ended up having to defend a particular square by myself while huge counterattack was underway. I assume this is a multiplayer game, I only say assume because I wasn't able to actually connect to any games for some reason when I did want to experience it. All in all, barely worth the 8 bucks I spent. I do have hopes that the sequel they make (which will probably happen considering the cliffhanger at the end) will be a big improvement over the original.

Army Of Two

Army of Two, now this was a game that I had been anticipating for a while. I had dreamed about 2 player co-op for a while now, and this game had me drooling at the prospect of playing with friends of mine in order to complete the game. Sadly, this was not to happen, as once again I had been struck down by Nofriendsboughtthegameitis. I ended up playing the game solo, and while it was fun, it was alot shorter than I expected, and looking back on it now, I should have saved the money for something better. That's not to say it's a terrible game, in fact, there were moments in the game where I found it to be fun, but I'm pretty sure this game was more focused on getting a friend to play with you split screen or through xbox live, as it just wasn't as fun playing with the AI. I ended up playing it in the spare moments I had, which as it turns out, was more than enough, finished it and traded it in towards store credit. I had even gotten the gamertag of one of the people at my local gamestop so I could play with him, but by then the game to end all games came out. Yeah you guessed it:

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Yep, Nintendo's brawler came out last week, and just my luck, practically everyone I knew got it, and while I had a copy of the game I wasn't able to play it since my Wii was in Canada. Le sigh. This one is sitting comfortably in my closet. It wasn't a total loss though in terms of gaming though, as my one bright spot in this dreary month was in the form of:

God Of War: Chains of Olympus

Kratos on the PSP. Need I say more? This game was a bit short, as I clocked in just over 7 hours playtime, but it was a magical 7 hours. I had some doubts how a God of War game on the PSP would be, but I was (happily) mistaken. This game alone justified the purchase of the PSP I made all those years ago, and while the PSP does have quite a few gems, this is probably the best PSP game ever, if not best handheld game I've played in a long time. The only real issues I have with the game is that sometimes the AI enemies will not attack and just stand there, especially the ranged units. I'm not sure if that was a bug, or due to something else, but regardless, it didn't take anything away from the game. My only regret is that I didn't have anything better to listen to the soundtrack to the game. God of War has always had a great score to accompany their games and this one was no exception, unfortunately I had to use the PSP's internal speakers, which didn't convey the rich music that occurred during the game.

Lost Odyssey:

Only just started playing this, but considering this game is made from the creators of Final Fantasy, with major players in that franchise's success contributing to this game, not only was I excited at what they were going to offer, but also to have a chance at seeing them work their magic on this title. After playing an hour or two, I can say that I'm not disappointed by the game by any means. It's a great game, and it's easy to see the influence that Final Fantasy has played, and they've taken the good parts of that franchise and put it in this game, but at the same time this can also be something of a negative. Other than the story line, which is unique, the rest of the game seems to be very similar, if not the same as a FF title, even down to the main character who could pass off as a woman if he ever decided to dress up as one. Even the battles are very FF-esque, although there are some differences here and there. I guess having my character kick trash cans or rip off posters to reveal hidden items is different from FF, but there's alot in the game that's just in the mold of what the creators of Lost Odyssey did when they worked at Square-Enix. I just thought they (Mistwalker) would try to set themselves apart from FF saying "What we did with Final Fantasy was great, but we moved on from that, and we can do bigger and better things". Similarities of LO and FF aside, it's an enjoyable game so far. It's a massive game as well, coming on 4 dvds. I look forward to spending some free time going through the story, which I will add, is quite depressing so far. Finally we come to:

Tales Of The Abyss

I can't say much about this game, since I've yet to play it, and I have no PS2 for which I can play it on, but I've heard some good things about this title, and I did pick it up used for a fairly decent price at my local Gamestop.

Well, that's about it for this post. I'll catch you all later. Since no one reads this anyways I don't have to worry about another long delayed post. :)

If I keep getting sick, I'm never going to be able to use a day off when I need one.

2008-02-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

OF COURSE I WOULD NEVER USE A SICK DAY AS AN EXCUSE TO SLEEP IN.. WHAT KIND OF PERSON AM I..................

Don't judge me.

Anyways, saying that I've been on a rollercoaster when it came to the past two weeks would be a slight understatement. I've had so many highs and lows that I'm starting to lose track of them all. Here's the gist of it, in a somewhat chronological manner. I've tried to keep it short, but I think the only way to make shorter posts is to make more frequent ones.

My Life since I posted last (Abridged):
GOOD: Got over my illness and started gastroenterology.

GOOD: Managed to get my 24" monitor replacement from Best Buy, and it's an amazing monitor so far. Not only is it better feature wise (HDMI, 3 ms response time), its got a glossy screen which is a nice touch, it doesn't make a buzzing noise when I turn it on or off, AND they refunded the difference in terms of how much I paid for my older monitor, which was totally unexpected.

BAD: I get home, plug in the monitor, hook up the xbox 360 to it, and what do you know? I get the Red Rings of Death.

GOOD: I take the 360 to Best Buy, and they say they'll swap it out since I had a Parts and Service Plan. I ask if I could pay extra for an Elite, they say sure. And since I paid more money for the PRO system back when they were more expensive I only paid a little over 30 bucks in difference which wasn't too shabby.

BAD: I find out that I'll lose my save games and my profile since I'm giving up my Hard drive. In order to get my save games, I have to do a crazy run back and forth between Best Buy and the local Gamestop which was close by, in order to transfer my save games over to a memory card. In all, I spend a good 2 hours running back and forth, in the middle of a snowstorm. Good times.

BAD: After getting it all sorted out, and while driving back home I realize that the new PRO system I was originally going to get also had an HDMI connection and there wasn't really a point to go and run around the place just to get the elite, other than a bigger HD, and it having a nice black colour to it.

BAD: While at the Gamestop, one of the employees stepped on the Elite box ripping it. That annoyed me. Especially since I knew it was my fault.

GOOD: Gastro is rough, and I have to admit I'm a bit intimidated by the doctor, since it looks like he never jokes around with anyone, but for the most part it seems to be going along somewhat smoothly. I just need to keep reading.

GOOD (I think): One of the office staff asks if she would like to be introduced to her daughter. Yeah, you read that right. But before people start shouting that "hell froze over", I later find out after talking with her for a good hour that the mother would like her daughter to have some positive influence in her life as she was hanging out with a bad crowd. can't say I wasn't flattered, so I listened to her talk, and gave my opinion about the whole situation. I hope it works out for both her as well as her daughter as it seems she's a highly intelligent individual but seems to be suffering from "being human".

BAD: I started getting a slight irritation in the back of my throat and from there...

BAD: I got sick again during the weekend.

GOOD: The doctor was kind enough on Monday to let me off since he saw me in such terrible shape. He also gave me a prescription refill for my antibiotics and told me to come back only when I'm out of it completely. I'm still waiting for the other foot to drop because he's being waaayy too nice for someone who looks like in a permanent sour mood.

BAD leading to GOOD: While feeling crappy, I tried to open up a package of Capri-Sun, and it ended up puncture and spill on top of my keyboard. Normally I'd say I'm never drinking another Capri-Sun, but since I bought 3 freaking boxes, I'm in somewhat of a pinch (I never had any before and I saw my roommate drink one once and thought it would be cool to buy)...I cleaned it.. only for it to start beeping like crazy after a while. I tried seeing if I missed anything but as far as I could tell, there was nothing I could see. It looked like the damage was already done. Had to take a quick drive to Best Buy for a replacement. There wasn't much to choose from, especially since I prefer using a wired keyboard, and I almost picked up an Apple keyboard as a replacement, but as I was leaving I noticed in the back a G15 keyboard by logitech. It's a tad pricer than I originally planned to spend on a keyboard, but from what I hear, it's pretty good for it's value, and it was also customizable for games, making it somewhat ideal if I ever decided to utilize its full features. I also had a 10% off coupon so I did save a bit off the final price tag.

BAD: After getting back from Best Buy, I started to feel real shitty. And that's when the fever hit full tilt. My head hurt, my body ached, and I sweat like I was in a sauna. I tried to stay awake, but eventually I gave in, and just lay down. I didn't fall asleep exactly, I just lay in the dark, sweating and moaning a little from the body aches.

It's been about 3 days since I had to take my leave (again), and let me just say that this better be my quota for illnesses this year. I've been sick way too long since I came back here and it's now bordering on pure ridiculousness now. I'm so close to finishing off these rotations and yet I keep stumbling over and over again. saying that I'm pissed would be a slight understatement.

I did pick up some games though:

Patapon:
I pre-ordered it and it came in, so far it's quite fun, although it is annoying in that I have to be quite precise in my timings when it comes to the beat.

Ghost Recon: Advance Warrior (Xbox360)
I only played the demo, and held off on buying a copy until now. It was 11 bucks used and for that price I managed to get a really decent disc.

Devil May Cry: 5th Anniversary Collection
Online Pickup, I had placed it a while ago, and It finally came in. I'm hoping to go through parts 2 and 3 before seeing how 4 is.

Folklore:
I was hesitant to pick this up, even though I enjoyed the demo, primarily because I wanted it to drop in price, and thankfully that's how I got it. It was listed at 39.99 instead of it's usual 60, so I quickly snatched a copy, but as it turns out, the sale for it had ended like last week. Great thing though is that they honored the price since it was listed there (although I think Indiana law had something to do with that), and they gave it to me for the 40.

Dual Shock 3 Controller:
What I had been anticipating for a while finally arrived. I had gotten a discount coupon for 10 dollars off for Play-asia.com thanks to a friendly user at cheapassgamer.com and managed to snag one of these beauties for only 49 bucks. I also decided to get it in Ceramic white, since it looked like such a nice color, and I wasn't disappointed. The controller is heavier and it feels much more well made and "concrete". Basically, it just feels right when I hold it.

I have been trying a bit of Patapon but with my illness, i seem to be getting easily frustrated by it. In the meantime I've been playing GRAW. It's an enjoyable game so far, and it was well worth the price I paid.

As I post this, it's going to be the weekend, and I'm praying that nothing happens between now and Monday.

*knock on wood*

Woo! Finally went to a VGL performance!

2008-02-16T17:26:00.000-08:00

I finally got a chance to go to Video Games Live when they stopped by in Fort Wayne, and I gotta admit, technical glitches and a dumbass who decided to yell something inappropriate during a somber moment in the show aside, I really enjoyed it. I did have this feeling that they could have done more, especially if this was in a bigger city, say Chicago, and that it did kinda feel like this was a pit-stop performance on their way to bigger places, but overall it was real fun, and great to be a part of.

I bought a Mario plushy as well as managing to get the signature of the conductor Jack Wall, who did the soundtrack for Myst, Mass Effect among others, as well as the Video Game Pianist Martin Leung, who was amazing, and finally, Tommy Tallarico, the co-creator of VGL. I got him to sign a copy of an Advent Rising soundtrack I purchased there. I personally love Advent Rising, and the soundtrack was an integral part of it. It fit the game very well, adding to that sense of "futility" that was throughout the game that no matter what I did, I was going to lose in someway. The fact that this was possibly the first and last game in a supposed trilogy, which, due to poor sales will probably not see a second part only added to the ambiance and eventual sadness.

I also found the lack of portable gaming devices at VGL a bit sad. When I went to Play! last year in Toronto, I opted not to bring my DS with me since I figured there wasn't much point in doing so. What a mistake that was. Practically everyone there brought one, and before the show started everyone who had was had linked in chatrooms talking to each other. I felt like I missed an integral part of the show, so I said that if I ever went to another one like Play! I wouldn't miss out. This time however, I didn't have my DS with me (I left it in Toronto), and all I had was the PSP. Not wanting to miss out however, I decided to bring it with me. Unfortunately, as far as I could tell, not many others brought their gaming devices with them. When I walked in, almost everyone just sat down and looked at the front stage and there was practically no one doing anything DS related (as far as I could tell from where I was sitting, maybe the lower bowl patrons were a different story). There was a scene during the encore presentation where Tommy Tallarico told everyone to get out their DS's and PSP's to have a light show kinda like they did during concerts where folks would get out their lighters. The vast majority of people had their cell phones up, but there were only a couple of DS's as far as I could tell and no one like me with a PSP. I should mention I didn't get my PSP out, not because of embarrassment or anything, but because it was an 80 year old theatre that hadn't changed with the times. I suppose during an era closer to the Great Depression, people's weight were in the range of slim to average, but it's not like that anymore, especially when the crowd mainly consists of people who sit on couches and chairs all day to play games. But don't tell that to the theatre seats. I couldn't even sit properly, let alone grab my PSP from my pocket. I didn't want the guy sitting next to me thinking I was trying to pickpocket him, or worse. Bad seats aside though, the seating location was amazing, and I was extremely happy that I decided to go to the ticket office and ask to change seats, and overall, I really enjoyed my time at the Embassy Theatre.

VGL did make me realize though how boring it is to go to events like this by oneself. There was no one to talk to about the show before and after the show. No one to express my delight or my dissatisfaction about the whole experience. Even when I went to Play!, I took my mother, (before you laugh, it wasn't because she was the only one I could take, rather, she works every day and I wanted to take her to this since she would get to go outside, and since she was a non-gamer and might enjoy something new to her, which she still says, albeit somewhat lacking in the "Genuine feeling" department, that she she enjoyed it) and we talked about how it was afterwards. This time as I mentioned earlier, there was no one to discuss it with. In fact, I felt somewhat embarrassed being there by myself, looking around at the others who did come with friends/family/loved ones. I would have liked to have gone to this with friends, but other than a few office staff personnel who are quite old, and of course those folks at the local Gamestop, who are buddy-buddy with me so long as I keep making those pre-orders, I haven't made any lasting friendships here in the last 3 years almost since I've been here. You can forget about the my fellow student popluation. I would consider some of them acquaintances at best, and those would be the ones I like. If I do go to a VGL-like event in the future, I hope to be in Toronto, and to go with someone of like interest. It's just no fun to go by yourself.

I would like to say that after talking to Tommy Tallarico, I found him to be one nice guy and I think he would be a really cool person to hang out with. I personally don't understand the criticism about his personality that I've read on the internet. He was a great guy, and so was Jack Wall. When I mentioned to him that I had attended Play! in Toronto, he wanted to know more about what Play! was like compared to VGL, which made me laugh a bit.

Overall, good times at Video Games Live! in Fort Wayne.

Going on a bit of a tangent from my normal posts, I did have a bit of a scare today. Like I mentioned earlier, I had been battling a cold now for the better part of a week and a half, and today during the afternoon, while I was at the GS buying an Xbox Live Gold Member card and chatting with the Microsoft rep who came in to update the Zune display, when I started to feel hot and cold, sweat slightly, as well as become really light headed. I had to lean up against a ladder they use to get games from higher areas, and become real worried that I was going to faint then and there. I then realized my diet the whole day consisted of two Pop-tarts and I couldn't even remember taking my usual two bottles of water. I asked one of the GS employees if he had any gum on him and he (thankfully) had some, and gave me a couple of pieces. After popping the pieces and chewing it, I realized I had this to consume the gum. Yeah, you read that right. I became so fixated on the gum, I was about a couple of chews from swallowing it, asking for more, and swallowing that as well.

I then said I had to leave, said my good-byes, and ran (well walked as quickly as I could without keeling over) to the closest restaurant I could set my sights on. It was incredibly busy, but thankfully they had an empty stool in the bar section (I was eating for one as always) and didn't even bother looking at the menu, I had been to the restaurant before, so I quickly ordered the same item over and asked them to bring me a Coke. I noticed while sitting down that my hands were shaking. This definitely wasn't a good sign.

I guzzled that Coke as soon as I got it, it was the only thing I could focus on, and let me tell you, I was feeling so wonky that it tasted like the most amazing glass of Coke I ever had. After eating some bread and drinking two glasses, I felt much better, and by the time my Meatloaf with two orders of Mashed potatoes. Yep, two sides orders worth. I didn't have time to listen to the other sides so I just said to bring all my sides as mashed potatoes.

Now i'm back in my room with a stomach ache because I ate too much, but honestly, I'd rather have a pleasant stomach ache right now instead of lying on the floor in the parking lot because I fainted.

Either My Abdomen Has An Erection or I Just Got A Hernia From Sneezing... And Will The Devil EVER Cry?

2008-02-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

Ugh, I don't believe I have a hernia yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up having one from all the sneezing I've been doing. I've been battling a bad cold for the better part of a week now, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. It's real annoying especially when I try to get a good nights sleep. The only benefit for me seems to be that my voice is a deep baritone, leaving me no choice but to act out my fantasy of being the FOX voice-over guy. Thanks to the cold however, I didn't get a chance to even play Anachronox, nor anything else for that matter, but it gives me time to rest.

Since we're on the topic of games:

Yep, I snagged a copy of DMC4 collectors edition for the PS3 from my local Best Buy, although I only decided to get it since I had a $10 off coupon. Since I don't have a PS3 with me, I'll have to hold out until I go back home to see what all the fuss was all about.

Two other items of note, Firstly, a PS3/PS2 memory card adapter. I figure since I bought one of the PS3's which have backwards compatibility, and I do mainly play my PS2 games on it, I should pick one of these up. It was used as well so I only paid around 9 dollars for it which was a pretty good deal. I also picked up a used Guitar Hero III controller for the PS3 for only $34. Considering that they'll soon be released for about $70 by themselves, not to mention this guitar had everything, and I mean EVERYTHING with it (even the stickers and the strap were never used) I got a pretty good deal. I hope when I get back I can play some co-op songs with my brother, who oddly enough seems to be enjoying GHIII more than I am.

Not much else to report, so I'll leave you folks with this to salivate over:

Let The Hellmarch reign once again.

Anchonorox? Anachronorox? (When I tried to first google it)

2008-02-06T19:11:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been a while since my last update on here. In that time, I travelled from Canada back the US, and have gone back to the old grind. While I was here though, I did manage to play, and *shock* finish a couple of games off. Warning: this is one big-ass post.

Now, one of the problems I'm having writing this blog, other than procrastination, of course, is that I have so many ideas in my head about what to write, that I'm unable to gather my thoughts collectively to be able to put them on here. I'm not sure why that is, I generally do enjoy writing, but nowadays, I have to think alot harder in order to make a proper post now. I also do this over on another website I help out on, and it just seems that a post that's supposed to take up 10 minutes of my time ends up taking me 40 minutes just to get a general format of how I want my post to turn out.

Anyways, Onto the games!

So while I was spending my last few days in Canada, I started playing a game called Anachronox for the PC. I had first heard about this game a very long time ago in a couple of ads for PC gamer, but never really considered playing the game until a member on a gaming forum I frequent, who always gushed about how great the game was, never wasting an moment to do so when the opportunity presented itself to let the everyone there know that here was this great game no one played. His recommendation was something that always stuck in my head and it stayed with me, until I finally decided to download it and try it out for myself.

If you're wondering what Anachronox even is, you're in good company. I didn't really know what it was about so I had to google it. Wikipedia has a decent enough entry about it, so I suggest you look up that.

In a nutshell, it's basically RPG made with the quake II engine. It also takes as one of its influences, Chrono Trigger, since the devs were big fans of that game. I really didn't know how Ion Storm (the devs/publishers) were going to make a RPG with chrono trigger like elements using the Quake II engine, but I wanted to give it a shot. According to wikipedia, the development of the game took 3 years, and even then they were only able to complete about half of the originally intended storyline. The first game apparently ends on a major cliffhanger. Normally I'd be turned off by a game with an unfinished ending, but after what happened with Advent Rising, I've become used to games ending with me wanting to know what the hell happens next.

The game's story would have been told in its entirety with the release of its sequel but because of poor sales followed by the demise of Ion Storm, it never came to pass, leaving fans of the game wondering what could have been.

After playing and getting halfway in it, let me just say that if this game wasn't so buggy and wasn't somewhat unpolished, this would be one of the best RPGs out there. Actually, even WITH all it's problems it's one of the best RPG's I've played. It's that damn good. The best way I can describe Anachronox is that it was a game ahead of its time, and that the devs just didn't have the right technology at their disposal for the story they were trying to tell, so they made do with what they had. The game's emphasis was less on grinding for levels say in traditional JRPG's and more on going through the story, and figuring out solutions to the various puzzles the game had in store for me. The puzzles weren't too difficult, and i'm actually proceeding through the game at a pretty smooth pace. But as I mentioned earlier, one of the problems holding this game back are it's bugs, and if a game had a developmental cycle of 3 years or so, it's not something that many people would be really forgiving of. And these aren't any small bugs which crash your computer, which apparently do happen with this game as well, though to be fair, I only had one crash on my laptop and that was induced by me, due to, what I would say, was a "fart" in the otherwise normal play of the game.

For example, one bug I can tell you off the top of my head takes at a certain point where I'm on Anachronox (Anachronox is a planet in the game, in case you were wondering, and it's basically where you start off), and at a certain point in the game, I have to get entry into a mine. However, the mines have been closed off, and there's a big dude who kinda looks like Tyrael from Diablo II standing in front of the door. I didn't really spend much time trying to gain entry since there's probably some other way which wasn't here, so I quit the game and decided to play later. When I come back, I'm in a totally different place. I'm not even near the save beacon, where I generally should be when I manually save. It's so different in fact, I haven't even seen the room before. After a few moments of general confusion, I see a door and go through it. I then pop up next to the alien. Quitting the game somehow allowed me to "magically" bypass the guard and enter the mine. I even talked to him, and he gives me the same message saying he can't let me pass, and voila, I can't get through the door. Wanting to confirm this, I go back to the menu, see it did an autosave, reload that, and I end up going back to the inside the mine. I was indeed in an area of the game I wasn't supposed to have accessed yet, both in level and in party size, and for good reason. I got destroyed by the first group I ran into. That's just one of the bugs. I also had interface related bugs, specifically dealing with each character's special abilities. One of these bugs led to the self inflicted crash I spoke about earlier.

And yet, with those problems among others I spoke of, I still love the game. It had everything I wanted in an RPG, memorable characters(oh boy are they memorable, what other game has a PLANET as a playable character?), levelling that wasn't 90% of the gaming experience, actually funny humour that wasn't too campy, and most important, an adventure with a storyline that had me spending hours in my room letting my laptop almost reach a meltdown point.

I've yet to finish the game. I think i'm about just over halfway through, and I'll be finishing this one off hopefully this week. Oh, and even though I downloaded the game, I loved it so much, I ended up hunting for it online, and bought a brand new sealed copy for 7.99. So worth it.

As of now, I basically suspended out my "One Game At A Time" Policy temporarily and decided to play a bit of all the PC games I had lying in my room. Since I took back almost all of the games I had back to T.O, I was left with a handful of RTS's.

Right now, I'm on the Nod missions for Command and Conquer 3, but since I finished the GDI campaign beforehand, I can keep this on the backburner. I'm also playing through a couple of RTS's I had been wanting to try with my dual monitor setup......... I guess this would be a good time to mention that my 24" widescreen LCD had to be taken back to Bestbuy for service. It had this.. "issue" that even sounds retarded to me... It sounded so retarded in fact, that the service center called me up to confirm that was the problem I was having. After telling them exactly the problem I was having, they said they would keep it for an extra week to see if they could "Replicate" it. Considering my history of the things I buy not working properly when I'm only around, I'm not optimistic of them being able to do anything about it. I'll find out hopefully this week or next what the verdict is.

Now, the RTS's in question that i'm talking about which worked with dual monitor setups are:

Supreme Commander from Gas Powered Games, and:
World In Conflict by Massive Entertainment. These games, especially World In Conflict, were games I had been holding off on, until I had finished completing my courses, as well as getting a new computer. Unfortunately, I couldn't help myself, and ended up opening both games. World In Conflict was a game I was especially hesitant to open because I really was looking forward to playing it.

I've only played through the first couple of missions in Supreme Commander, so I can't really give my impressions on it, although it seems to be similar to how Total Annihilation was, the game for which it is its spiritual successor to.

World In Conflict, however I did end up playing more than Supreme Commander, actually finishing it. I had been holding off on even opening it, and I as soon as I decide to, I end up playing the game to death in 2 days. First off, let me just say that this was a collector's edition that I was actually happy to get. The box was great, and the addition of an authentic piece from the Berlin Wall was a nice little prize. It's not like i'm going to see the real wall anytime soon. Collectors versions of games nowadays are pretty crappy, and for the most part, aren't really worth the extra money. This was a rare exception.

This RTS plays differently and if you've played any of Massive's previous titles, Ground Control I and II, you'll know what I'm talking about, There is no base building whatsoever. The emphasis of the game is more focused on grabbing control points while working with reinforcements you get through points you collect by capturing control points as well as completing objectives, both primary and secondary. One of the appealing points about this game is that it's "real world" combat, not futuristic combat, nor is it "real word + lets add in some secret weapon no one's ever heard of". This game is all about present day warfare, or at least the weaponry during 1989.

Basic premise of the game is in the dying years of the cold war, the USSR, instead of allowing their collapse gracefully, and future emergence as a democracy, instead decide to roll the dice and start World War III. The war intially begins in Europe, but soon the USSR figures it wouldn't be fair to everyone else, and invades US soil, namely Seattle (HA HA Anderson) and the main storyline in the single player campaign has you play the role of a US officer named Parker during the attack. One of the cool things I thought was that your characters along with most of the NPC's (rather the other characters you interact with during cutscenes) have a history with one another, which you'll eventually find out through Flashback Missions. I felt it did add another dimension to the game, to allow you to see how they ended up disliking each other.

The campaign in itself is short, even on normal mode I managed to finish it off in 2 days, yet I found it to be well worth it. The end of the game more or less screamed World In Conflict II (or expansion), so if that happens soon, I look forward to it. I've yet to play multi-player, although I hear that's quite unique, in a good way. From what I understand, each side say the US for example, has two different players, one controlling the ground forces, and one player controlling the air forces. This type of setup leads to all kinds of possibilities where the team of two have to rely on each other's support to get them out of hairy situations. I might try it when I get my second monitor back, if anything, i'd like to complete the game with all the secondary objectives complete.

Well on that note, I'll end this post. Before I forget, I should mention I did pick up the games that I had on preorder for almost 4 months and wasn't able to pick up the whole time. Most notably, I picked up my copies of:

Mass Effect: Limited Edition (Ordered this from Gamestop, through Barnes and Noble). With my 24" on extended leave, I didn't even bother opening this yet. I'm still debating if I should read the prequel novel beforehand, so I get the "Total Mass Effect Experience".
F.E.A.R: Platinum Collection. All 3 F.E.A.R games in one box, mind you I did finish the first one, but I had been holding off playing any expansions until I knew there wouldn't be anymore and it was all put in one, cheap box.

I also got this baby used:

It's an incredibly hard game to find, and sells for quite a bit of coin on Ebay. I'm not sure however, if i overpaid, since the version I have didn't come with the soundtrack and there is a version with it. Oh well, I still have a few days before I can still return it.

To end this post, I'm currently playing through:

This has been a game I've been anticipating for a while now. It's been touted as "Civilization" meets "Homeworld", and although those are lofty goals indeed, I decided to pass on reading reviews beforehand, and bought a copy directly from Stardock's online Store.

Now, while it does lack in certain aspects of civilization part of the game, say a more in-depth empire options, say espionage, or more hands-on management of your planets, it makes it up in a big way in its game play. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning the first time I decided to play an actual game until I finally had to force myself away from the computer screen. It was that good. Be forewarned though: anyone looking for a traditional RTS game, or a game that you can finish in an hour, look elsewhere. This game is similar to how turn based games like Civilization or Stardock's own Galactic Civilization" play, and you can't finish those games in 40 minutes. Sins moves at much slower pace than say Command And Conquer 3 that you can literally spend a good hour just battling for control for a single planet and still not have an outcome. But it's this very pace that I find so refreshing and enjoyable. An example is that I was trying to destroy a pirate base which had been harassing my homeworld periodically with raids which were beginning to get very annoying. It also didn't help that their base was only two jumps away. I ended up having to defend my homeworld most of the time against them instead of the other hostile race that I had been wanting to attack. This lead to my empire suffering in the size department. Although I was able to hold my own against the constant pirate attacks and the occasional attacks from my opponent, I knew that eventually my economy wasn't going to hold out with only 3 planets and limited resources coming in. I had to take out the pirates once and for all. I made two main fleets, and made one fleet jump in to distract the main pirate forces, while I took a secondary battlegroup and waited until the right moment where the pirates were totally fixated on my main attack group, where they the second group jumped in and attacked the planet's defenses. The co-ordinated attack helped throw off the AI long enough for me to do major damage and destroy most of his satellite defenses. I retreated back with minimal losses, waited just long enough so that the pirates weren't able to rebuild in time, and jumped in both forces at the same time and destroyed the pirate base, all the while, keeping an eye on the empire making sure they didn't use the opportunity to launch a sneak attack (which they had done previously when I tried getting rid of the pirates). This was just one of the examples of how "epic" the battles can get.

The developer, Ironclad Games (based in Vancouver, chalk up another quality Canadian development house!) have said that on the big maps you can spend days if not a month or two in the same game. This also happens in online games, so you can have the ability to save your game against a friend online, and come back play it again later. Like I said, this is not for the casual RTS gamer.

I think I'm going to be playing Sins for quite a while, and I can only imagine how the game will look on my 24" when it comes back from the service centre. Funny thing is that all the games I've been playing have really pushed my computer to its limit. Oh well, I think I can still get a year out of it until it finally dies on me.

Remember what I said about taking my time with posting? This post only took me.. 4 hours! D'oh!

Age of Mythology Titans complete! - sorta...

2008-01-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

Well, this'll be a short post, I managed to see the end of the Titans campaign for Age of Mythology, and it wasn't too bad. It wasn't as good as the original campaign, I thought, but it was decent enough. It was much shorter in terms of missions, where the main campaign had 32 missions, the expansion only has 12. However, I should say that I was on the 4th mission when I caved and decided to see the rest of the story.

Yeah, you guessed it, in come the cheat codes. I'm pretty sure I missed out on alot of the story that was told during the gameplay, especially in the last mission where I said "how did that happen?", but I had to be realistic in that I just couldn't devote that much time to it. Sure, I probably would have finished it off, but not in the time frame that I wanted. Still, I might have to revisit the expansion at a later point because I do feel like trying my hand at an actual fight against a titan or two.

Now that's over with, I tried my hand at another game, which oddly enough also has a "bit" of a greek mythology theme to it, Titan Quest. After a bit of playing though, I had to stop and uninstall it from my laptop. It wasn't bad overall, really nice game in the same manner of how Diablo I and II are, but whenever I entered a cave area, it would get real choppy, besides the slight sluggishness when I was in a town. Besides, it did pop a message that my laptop was below the system specs, so I figure I might as well stop playing this game before I get too far ahead of myself, and see how it plays on my desktop when I come back from the US.

I believe I'm going to stop attempting to play anything on my laptop while I'm here, just due to the fact that I'm about to leave from here. If anything changes though, I'll post it on here.

Age Of Mythology - Complete!

2008-01-06T17:10:00.001-08:00

Woo! Let this mark the first game completed in the long list of games yet to play. I have to admit, it was alot of fun playing through the campaign storyline, and the very last mission was especially satisfying when I won.

The ending cinematic does leave the prospect open for what I hope is a continuation of the storyline in the Titans expansion. Now, unlike the main campaign, I'm considering just using cheats to get to the see the story as it happens. Not that I personally mind going through the campaign, but I'm leaving back to the US this week, and I do not want to carry this game to install it there. I'd rather finish the whole story while I have it installed on my laptop.

I'll have to recheck my previous posts, but I'm pretty sure I didn't mention this either, but I also finished off Call Of Duty 4. Very short single player campaign, which was expected judging by the reaction to it online and by my friends, but it was oh, so satisfying to play through. I won't spoil it too much for you, but after the credits, they added a nice little touch, which I enjoyed. I also found myself doing the tutorial mission over and over again trying to beat my best time, and ended up getting within a second of beating the game's best score (not the score posted by Infinity Ward, rather the score posted by Gaz, the SAS operative). All in all, it was definately worth the 10 dollar rental.

In the time I've spent here, I can say I've managed to get some good gaming time in, even managing to finish off a most of the games I purchased while I was here, but now that I'm going back, I gotta prepare myself for some serious studying time. This means my game time will be back to almost nil, but I hope I'm able to squeeze some time in to finish off a couple of games on my to-do-list. I also hope to compile a list of the incomplete games that I have lying around.

I only wish I could paid doing this.

THIS... IS.... ATLANTIS!!! (see what I did there?)

2008-01-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

I've got some good news and some bad news.

Good news is, I've actually made decent progress in Age of Mythology, and I have to admit, I've become quite addicted to it. I only played the first Age of Empires game, never bothered with the second, and only played a bit of the third, so I wasn't totally a hardcore fan of the series. But, the spin-off of this series is, in my mind at least, quite well done so far. The campaign, story-wise is quite similar in its execution to what Blizzard did with Warcraft III, (I don't actually know off-hand which game was out first, so forgive me), main point is, I really enjoyed how the game's campaigns were played out. And Age of Mythology was no exception. Graphics aside, Gameplay is polished, Music and Audio is top notch, and more importantly, it's damn fun to play. I'm quite surprised it took me this long to finally play it. I think I'm near halfway in the campaign, so I'm hopeful that I can finish off the game before the end of the weekend.

And now the bad news.

GUESS WHAT I GOT FOR CHRISTMAS!!!

Okay, I technically didn't get them for Christmas. I did however, receive them as replacement gifts for the snafu that occurred on December 25th, when I received two copies of Guitar Hero III. Luckily the 360 version was wired AND was Wal-mart so it was pretty much a given to return that one.

I went with my cousin and decided to pick up these two instead. I heard some good things about The Witcher, and I tried battalion wars 2 on a friends Wii and I enjoyed what it had to offer.

I also went to my local Blockbuster, and got a copy of Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360. I was planning on buying at some point, but a friend of mine said it would be a great rental for me, since I'm not a big fan of shooters on consoles. I played it last night it's an incredibly amazing and engrossing FPS experience. The only knock that I have against it is that the single player campaign is quite short, shorter than most imagined it to be, but in those few hours of playing, people just can't stop gushing about how amazing the game is, and I'm no exception. I guess the short single player campaign can be looked as a positive in my case, since I'm trying to finish off all my games in my collection, but Call Of Duty 4 is a game were I didn't want the experience to stop, and for it to keep going for as long as blood kept flowing in my veins. Oh well, as the saying goes, and it fits especially in this case,

"All good things must come to an end."

A gaming blog? Say It isn't so!

2007-12-31T16:24:00.001-08:00

Well it's not really a true gaming blog. I don't think I have the ability for that undertaking. No, I'm thinking this blog would be a better way for me to keep track of my gaming habits. Since I have (and lets be honest) quite a number of games in my collection, and having only played only a small portion of them, I figure it's time for me to start doing this "one game at a time". Basically, i'll be posting what game i'm starting, and try and focus ONLY on that game. Now, what classifies as a "complete" game in my book? Well, trying to get everything in a game or unlock 100% complete is something i'm just not able to, so so long as I get the ending, that's fine with me. Also, especially with RTS games, finishing off one side (if there are 3 sides) classifies as a finish for me, in case I feel I should move on from it. Most cases, I do stick with it and try to finish off all the possible story lines, but if time is a factor (and nowadays it is, I'll have to skip it and move on.

I guess I should point out that I'm not as hardcore as I used to be when it comes to gaming anymore, nor am I an amazing video-game player. If I have to complete it on easy mode, I guess, I have to do that. I have just way too many games which are incomplete. When I get the time, i'll have to actually take the time to take inventory of what games I've amassed, and see what I've finished and what I've yet to complete. That should be fun.

Whenever I do finish a game, I'll post how long it took me, and what my impressions of it were.

First up, Age of Mythology. I had heard good things about it, but only recently purchased it, when the price tag was more appealing to me. This version I have also contains the expansion, so i'll be having some fun with this one, and hopefully I can finish this off (at least the main game) before I head back to the U.S.

Redux.

2007-09-20T20:07:00.000-07:00

In a moment of .. I don't know I deleted my blog. I guess it's time for a new start.