Raging

Is it October 4th yet?

No?

Well there are a number of reasons why I am looking forward to October 4th, the biggest of them being the upcoming game called Rage.

I am really liking that it looks like how Borderlands originally did and the fact that there are really so many options for weapons it seems a little overwhelming to me. Having just watched the new trailer for this game today seems to confirm just how many different ways you can kill a mutant and/or human in a post apocalyptic world.

Going back to the look of the game world, I have to say that it looks amazing from what I've seen so far. With it's looks and everything it is promising, this is almost too good of a game to be true. How can a single game pack in that much content? Can it really be as good as it sounds?

I know I've fallen for these ploys before and the results were always pretty goddamn horrible. Thank you Alpha Protocol, Brink, Final Fantasy XIII for those slaps of reality.

But all of that aside, my only real fear as far as this game goes is that it will end up playing like Fallout. Now I am sure Fallout is as awesome a game as anything out there. It obviously has a ton of fans and it sounds like a boat load of fun if you can get into it. As for me personally? It just was not my cup of tea. And I've tried Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas and just never got sunk into it.

On the flip side though, this game is being made by folks who have a deep rooted history in first person shooter games, so what could there possibly be to worry about? Maybe this will be a smashing hit and this could very well be the best game I've played this year...?


I'll find that out in 4 days.

Irritated

While I am trying to keep the ranting on here down to a minimum, there are a couple of things in life that bother me enough to have to rant. And I don't mean just having a bad day, oh I hate my job, that kind of ranting. I mean it bothers me to where I just wanna throw these things away/ across the room just so they will not be in might sight. Anyhow, today one of my most hated peeves has come to pass: Buying a used game that isn't in it's original casing.

UGH.

This even extends to stuff like movies and music CDs, I just do not like to have these things if they are not in the case they were originally with. My girlfriend has no problems with stuff like this and that generally drives me fucking insane! She tried to give me Ponyo without the case once... she hasn't seen the disc since.

Back to the game, it was a Xbox 360 game and you know those things come in their own nifty green cases. Well this one doesn't have it, nor does it have the cover art (some generic piece of something that has the title typed out on it) or even the goddamn booklet that comes with the game! It has nothing! And my girlfriend expects that this.... THING... will be placed on our shelf next to the rest of the collection?

Ho, ho, ho! I don't think so! Do I foresee this game sitting under the shelf? Yes, yes I think I do.

This wouldn't be such a issue really, if only I could find this game in places other then goddamn GameStop (game in question is Warriors Orochi 2). But since I cannot, I either pick it up here or buy it online for a much higher price.

Let me repeat this: UGH.

Still, I am already searching anew for a proper copy of the game. Having it was sort of a relief, but thinking about it is driving me crazy. It does not fit! Maybe I have OCD? Or whatever it might be called... I don't care! Everything has a proper place and this monstrosity looking the way it does does not fit in! It does not conform! It does not work!

Fantasy Trigger

You know I was one of the many who was overjoyed to have read the confirmation that both Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI were coming to PSN immediately. As a fan of those old school masterpieces, sure I have them on various other consoles/devices already. But you know what? I enjoyed them so much that I actually don't mind putting down money to get them again. Why? These games came from a time where RPGs were more about the story and character over the graphics.

I always wondered how long of a game could a developer make if graphics were in Chrono Trigger/Final Fantasy VI style?

Anyway, it was very disappointing to find out that there was an error and neither of the games were actually released. What was funny about the situation was that even the official PS blog reported the games' imminent release as truth, only to have to retract that statement after the fact. What's worse is that wasn't even the only error in that blog. Kill the messenger? Well if the messenger got the message wrong, maybe... just maybe...

Seriously, if the official blog itself cannot even get it's news correctly and if they don't know the difference from truth or fiction, who can you really believe here? 

Change Keeps Rolling

So my blog is suffering a bit of an identity crisis around here lately, but nevertheless the changes are still coming. I just haven't found the right group of changes where I wouldn't mind just leaving it alone for a while thereafter. Instead I just keep finding myself coming back here and just wanting to throw in more changes.

As it is right now, I think I like the background and having everything a little lighter and brighter is a nice change from having mostly all gray. The font isn't sitting too well with me though, but I like it to a degree. But can anyone actually read it? I mean in a way where you don't get a headache during and/or after? I guess I am going back to the drawing board and soon...

I've also been playing with another notion and that is to start up a new blog here on Blogger. The concept? To write a post everyday for a thousand days just to see how I may or may not have changed in that period of time. Am I working at a job I enjoy? Or am I still in the same place? Do I still enjoy gaming as much as I did before? How about movies? Or just everything in life, focused to a single post a day for a thousand days. How difficult could that be?

Granted, the idea of it just popped into my head as I am writing this post and to write a thousand posts? I've only gotten past 600 in what, 6 years? What the hell could I be thinking?

I'm thinking I am looking for something new, something challenging and just something different overall. Surely I could do the same thing here, but a lot of times now I feel like this is a blog mostly dedicated towards the gamer in me and not really much else.

Perhaps I'll continue to entertain the thought and who knows? Maybe something will become of it in the near future.

Future

Surprise, surprise... looking around here recently, making changes as I tend to do, I've discovered that I've been writing in this blog since August of 2006. Where has that time gone? I never would have thought that my simple little blog would still be around today. Anyway, back then I didn't mind having a simple blog for the mere fact that I did not believe I'd still be writing one years down the road. At that point, I really had not done anything in life that went beyond a year or so. Well now that I am down that road and finding myself still here, still writing, it has gotten me thinking a little bit.

Danger! Danger!

Yeah, I've been thinking about maybe moving house to a different blog site in the near future. I am still finding Blogger functional and all, but I guess I am just looking for something more then what I am finding here. I've been messing around with Tumblr for the past few months and have been finding that place to be a bit more to what I am wanting. Hell I at least have a small chance at pulling in an audience!

It'll be strange, actually moving this blog out and away from here and focusing my writing elsewhere. But maybe the time is right.

Getting Into Gear

Short and simple: I, no, we are enjoying the holy hell out of Gears of War 3! Well, for the most part we are anyway. Horde 2.0 is pretty damn fun and the boss battles are pretty bad when trying to get through them with only two people. But we've gotten up to round 17, which is absolutely higher then we've ever achieved in Gears 2 as a duo. The rounds get real chaotic, real quick and even with the addition of cash and the ability to buy defenses, it only helps so much before you get overwhelmed. Even the A.I. seems a bit better and seeing some of the bigger monsters on the Locust side hopping walls is a sight we both are still getting used to.

Fun times.

The other mode we gave a try was Beast mode, which we actually didn't quite like as much. Sure it is a little fun to play as the Locust, but man... the A.I. on the Gears/human side is pretty damn crafty and we've ended up dead and failed quickly. It feels like this mode would be much better off playing with a full group, rather then a small one.

As far as the campaign is concerned, we've actually not tried it out just yet. As mentioned, I think we've been a little more focused on putting the updated Horde mode through some paces beforehand. But then I think the idea was that we give the campaign itself a go probably tonight. Can't wait to see how that has changed and if it does a better job of story telling...

Dead Island

Note: I've only given this game a short amount of play time (roughly about 30 minutes) and this is my feelings on what I saw and played through. Played this on Xbox 360...

For starters, the game play itself seems to function pretty well, nothing really overly complicated about it. The fights with the zombies can end up being pretty chaotic from what I saw as well. If you happen to pull away from the people you are playing with and happen upon a group of zombies scattered on the ground (a lot of 'em are playing dead... ha ha), the game is pretty much over. I've found myself a few times swinging away for my life, only to see the stamina gauge run out and I was pretty much attacked/eaten/mauled to death. 

Team work? At least in this limited amount of time I've played it, generally does not exist. Sure there were moments where my randomly selected "partners" would gang up together and attack the same zombies. But more often then not, I'd find these guys were long gone and reaping the rewards (money, items, weapons) while I was stuck with dealing with the mess. Maybe I was just doing things all wrong? Still, I think this is yet another game where it would probably work out better if you played with friends.

Speaking of which, sadly there isn't any options for any split screen co-op to be had in here. There doesn't seem to really be any options, other then to play with either your friends or randomly selected people over Xbox Live. 

The story itself? Well obviously there are a ton of questions and next to no answers as to how and why there are zombies in paradise. There are different characters to choose from (3 or 4 if I recall correctly) and I picked the martial arts girl. Did it help? Well my first encounter with zombies/infected ended up with me throwing punches, taking none of them out and pretty much dying.

Damn.

Everything changed once I got a hold of a weapon (a paddle) and the weapons seem much more durable then I thought they'd be (kept reading how annoying it was how these weapons break so much). Money wasn't too much of an issue at the start, so when I finally got around to making repairs and upgrades to my weapons it wasn't bank breaking. Then again, how much could it possibly cost to repair a crappy pipe and a knife anyway?

Overall, the game doesn't seem that bad at the start and the game play is good enough to where combat and movement aren't really that awkward. The surroundings are pretty nice, though I can't really say the same for the story itself. I'd hope that picks up as the game progresses... but being that it is a game set in a zombie apocalypse, story never really was a strong suit to begin with I suppose.

Still, I think I'd consider on playing this again...

Regenesis

Finally reading into detail as to what the Schism story is about and so I got the gist of the story all wrong. Cyclops isn't killed in the ensuing battle against Wolverine. Instead the team is broken apart in the wake of this long overdue meltdown. I can still only speculate as to what finally tears these guys apart after all of this time, but I imagine it has something to do with the change that has been happening in Cyclops.

I mean he was a leader whom didn't really have any confidence in himself and he has always fallen back to the Professor (Xavier) for support. But with him out of the picture and basically the entire X-Universe on his shoulders, everything changed. More importantly, Cyclops himself changed. Long gone was the unsure leader and in his place was a man who was growing increasingly at ease with making the "tough decisions."

Having also just read the prelude to Schism, it was amazing to me that the long standing dream of both Xavier and Magneto had come to pass under the leadership of Cyclops: Mutant kind (what was left of it) was united under a single banner and even just seeing Cyclops, the Professor and Magneto together and not trying to kill one another was a huge deal to me. It made me question just what the hell have I been missing out on after all of these years...?

What also surprised me about this different X-Men was the change that happened to X-Force. Wolverine was leading the charge and they had become the black ops for Cyclops' plans.

Damn.

Eventually I think I am aiming to catch up and read through this change in X-Force. Having only read a few issues of it, I did actually like what I read in that. But I wonder what the future will hold for X-Force and generally every single mutant left? Who will side with who when the dust settles? And come on, is the world really big enough for two X-Men teams?

Slump

Random thought time!

Since moving to this new place, I feel like I've been in a bit of a slump all around. I've fallen behind on some games (Deus Ex has lost me and I am barely started into Disgaea 4). And as stated here, Gears of War 3 is just days away! I hope some running and gunning will help kick start my gaming drive once again...

I've been slowly picking up games for my PSP, though I've not really made much use of that recently either. I still intend on playing Persona 3, though I have Breath of Fire 3 and Final Fantasy IV The Complete Collection to go through as well. What I am thinking of picking up is The 3rd Birthday, Dissidia 012: Duodecim Final Fantasy and maybe Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties Dood! and perhaps even God of War: Ghosts of Sparta as well.

Thankfully I've been signed up with Gamefly long enough to get an okay discount on used games, so the overall price isn't really that bad. It definitely comes out a lot cheaper then trying to buy them at my local GameStop. Speaking of whom, I have a little rant about those guys (again), but I will save that one for another time. I wish there were more convienant options of buying games here so I would not have to deal with those assclowns anymore.

But back to the subject of the PSP, of course another of my other fears is my old PSP may just kick the bucket and that would mean a lot of wasted money on games. It's also a little disappointing to hear that these PSP games are useless with the Vita.

Which makes me wonder why Sony continually changes their media whenever they get a new device? Money grab probably? Meh...

Anyhow, I suppose I will try to get a little gaming time in today... I'd like to see what changes have been made to Disgaea 4, aside from the much nicer looking character sprites. I heard something about customization? Now that could get me interested, considering there are more options then just changing their names and weapons and such.

Final Fantasy X HD?!

So Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still missing in action here, there is Final Fantasy XIII-2 on the horizon and now Final Fantasy X is getting a HD facelift? In some ways, I do sort of miss the days when there weren't sequels to Final Fantasy games. Sure it is good to see where the characters have gone to, but this is getting a little out of hand.

Granted, I imagine a HD make over for FFX would make the game look much better. But what I want to know is if it ends there or if there will be more added into the game? How about those international missions? I think I recall there being some for this game. Maybe a few more Aeons? Or some side quests to give the characters a bit more story?

I'll be keeping my eye on this one for certain...

Uh, Why?

To be honest, I am liking that there are more of these special edition bonus crap that gets bundled with video games nowadays. I'm a sucker for that stuff. I have a few statues sitting around now that I probably would not have bought otherwise. I think it is because of the years of watching other countries (*cough*Japan*cough*) got so much stuff with their games that I am going insane with buying these now.

But what bugs me more and more these days are these damn videos about how some random person gets to unbox these special editions days before the game's release date and show off all the stuff within.

Why? Why must there be these goddamn videos of this kind of crap? I doubt it is for promotional reasons, I mean the big name games tend to always sell out by the release date. So why would anyone promote a special edition you can't buy?

I got a splendid idea! How about releasing the game a couple of days sooner and we can all just unbox these things ourselves?

Seriously, I think this will join my gaming pet peeves right next to region exclusive special editions/games. Why can't we all just get these things equally? And what makes people think other people want to watch someone else open up boxes for shit we can't even get to yet?

Agh!

Just Another Day

In some ways, I wish somethings in life would change and yet I want it to stay the same. I guess I've gotten into a comfort zone and break out of it isn't nearly as easy as I thought.

Anyway, just a short thought for now as I sit at work on this beautiful day. I'd love to go to the beach on days like this, but alas... I don't really like being sun burnt.

Then again, this morning had a bit of rain which is nice to have in the city. I always liked the cool air after a good rain.

And sometimes, the rainbow at the end are just flat out amazing. Today was one of those times...

Back to work!

Gearing Up For War

The biggest deal (gaming wise) for me going forward is the upcoming Gears of War 3, which sounds almost too promising to be real. Just 8 more days until I can know for myself! I think I am most looking forward to the expanded and refined Horde mode, which was what became a damn near obsession in my house for quite a long while. We still break it out every now and again, just to scratch that itch of shredding a hapless Locust grub or twelve with the ever fun Lancer. Or Boom Shot. Or the Hammer of Dawn. You know that shotgun was always fun too...

Speaking of the armory, I am curious to see how the new weapons affect things. The new shotgun and its damn near one shot kill was a bitch in the beta. The retro Lancer seemed a little tough to make use of, but I'm sure that will be an afterthought once we can get more play time with these new weapons.

I hope Epic keeps up the flow of map packs with Gears 3, though I suppose they didn't really do a bad job with Gears 2. Still! Its always fun to have a lot of variety to pick from and games like this seem to benefit from having that sort of choices. Which makes me wonder about this season pass of theirs? Buy it and gain access to the first four DLC? What about the others (if there are any)? Hmm... that one is going to wait a bit I think, at least for us anyway.

Anyhow...

8 days remaining!

Chobits

Chi

With my internet issues now behind me, I can focus on getting back down to business and the business at hand (or what was before I moved) was an Anime I had just finished watching called Chobits.

Before ever seeing anything, I'd have sworn this would be a show that my girlfriend would be interested in. She doesn't mind the high schooler types of Anime nor does she seem to mind the cutesy appearances of the characters. Hell, she was a fan of Card Captor Sakura, whom also is behind the Chobits series as I understand it. So interest on my part has been next to nil for many, many years and I didn't even bother to pick up the Manga either.

But fast forward to about a month or so back and Netflix has given us the chance to watch a ton of different movies and TV shows at will. My interests grew as the library of Anime on there expanded and considering I didn't have to buy anything, why not give some random shows a try? And before I knew it, I was 6 episodes in and loading up the 7th.

How in the heck did that happen?

I enjoyed the characters and their interactions probably the most as it reminded me of how the cast in Tenchi interacted with each other. Despite the differences between the characters, they all meshed together rather naturally and I never really felt any of the pairings were forced or wrong even before the explanations for the hows and whys ever took place.

The main character (Hideki) was ever a bumbling, kind hearted fool who was kind of a perv but was probably way too innocent to really be so. Still, I couldn't help but feel for the guy for trying even in the face of overwhelming odds. And the guy was such a country guy that he was absolutely clueless to nearly all forms of technology, which makes his relationship with Chi all the more odd and entertaining.

The other aspect that really won me over was all of these chances for this series to sink into something twisted and overly sexual were never touched on. Where other shows would have went with the easy perv out moments, Chobits keeps it clean and I think that actually helps the overall story of this show. Would I have cared about this as much if Hideki had tried to have sex with Chi or become overly obsessed with seeing her nude or something like that? Probably not.

Now that isn't to say that certain thoughts do pop up in Hideki's mind from time to time and in no thanks to Chi's innocent and naive manner, but he never crosses the line and as I said, things are always kept clean from the start and until the end.

One last little thought about this show is this: I rarely pick up entire shows as far as Anime is concerned. I usually don't like how a lot of these series ends, but Chobits is one of the exceptions. The start of the series does go a little slowly, but towards the midway point things pick up and the conclusion to the series was fitting though it gets a little strange in getting there. Still, this ended up being a purchase for me and I wish I could enjoy more shows like I did this.

Back In Action!

Finally...

After spending the last few weeks (about 3) being "disconnected" from the world, I am finally back! In some ways it was kind of nice, though there were days where I felt like I was getting a little stir crazy. I think what I missed about not having the internet was being able to watch stuff like ThunderCats. What? I love the heck out of this reboot and it kind of hurt to miss it these past few weeks.

Then again I could/did watch the episodes from my phone, but still! Full screen videos wins over a tiny cell phone screen any day!

But the most frustrating thing about all of this was having to deal with so many uncertainties. I never would have guessed that moving into a new place and having internet service transferred could be such a hassle. Hell, I didn't even think trying to sign up with a new company would also end up being a headache, but that is how it worked out also.


Thankfully, we at least won't have to pay for the full month's bill because of the lack of service up until now. But I hope in the future these companies will do more to keep their customers informed when they have issues, rather then leaving 'em in the dark as much.

Our first idea for an alternative internet provider was Clear (formerly Clearwire), but I think they were quickly ruled out because of everyone we ever asked about it, two said they liked it and everyone else said it was the worst of the worse. Ouch.

Our second option was going back to Road Runner, which we had used a number of years prior. I can't say we had the best experience with their service, but in the years since then, it looks like they've added more options to their service and it looks and sounds worlds better then what we had.

So in light of that, I think the plan going forward is to keep our DSL and we're signing up for cable at the same time. The goal here is to see which of the two actually functions better and we'll keep the best of the two choices. So far our DSL has been pretty okay, the speed of it is nothing like it was before we moved (damn you old house with old wiring!).

All in all though, I think I am just happy we're reconnected again!

Disconnected... The Story Continues

A little update: So our choice of isp (Hawaiian Tel) finally transfers our DSL service to our new place. But does the tale end there? Absolutely not! As we discovered, there is something amiss with our connection and the bottom line is we are without internet. Still. But the real kicker about all of this is the fact that Hawaiian Tel cannot or will not do anything to fix the problem. They claim all is well on their end. So where does this leave is? Well they say they need to send a tech out here, but they cannot tell us any date in particular and it was/is driving me insane! Where we go from here, I cannot say for certain. Finding another company for our internet has been nothing short of pure frustration to say they very least. At this point we are looking to go back to using Road Runner, but that isn't without it's own share of troubles. I just want this to be done and over with already! And more importantly then that, I want my internet back!