Merry Christmas: Snow, Snow & More Snow

メリークリスマスにゃ～

Christmas Day - we had Christmas dinner at my Auntie Lily's place like every year. Though this year, we had two particular cousin kids who are part of the not-liked-as-much branch of the family join in on our celebration to end up NOT participating in it but instead to just sit around. The thing is, their grandparents (aka. their mom's parents, meaning their dad is my dad's brother) told them NOT to eat anything. Okay, what is the point of them coming then? Oh right, leech ice cream and get their DAMN PRESENTS. They were totally missing out so it's not of my concern really. But I need to mention them because they still stand to be the most disliked part of the family.

Family stuff aside.. onto presents. To add onto the awesome 2010 Olympics Mascot collection, I now have the whole mascot keychain set as well! On top of that, I also have that super chubby extra mascot thing called MukMuk for the rest of my 2010 family. It's all thanks to my mom and her passion to expand this collection!

I got a lucky pocket from my grandma and a Future Shop giftcard from my aunt (why not best buy?? I want ze points??!).. also received a scarf from my BFF. Her note basically said she saw the scarf and saw me. LOL THAT MEANS I HAVE TOO MANY SCARVES AND SHE'D ALWAYS SEE ME WITH ONE OH WELL! I like scarves so I'm not complaining~

I believe I'm still missing one more gift from another BFF cough ;b but I'll let her take her time heehee.

About the snow... it's still around. It's like supar high right now and it rained, however not enough. I need to drive in it tomorrow feck.

Winter Break Thus Far...

I'm about 2 weeks into my winter holiday and it has been quite eventful this whole time. There was a lot of chauffeuring and errand doing.. there was a bit of hanging out here and there.. then I try to squeeze in as much gaming as I can (you'd think I'd be able to get to do this the most...).

It's been snowing like mad as of late. In fact, it's snowing some more now. It'll be a white Christmas indeed but it's rather inconvenient for traveling in. I walked in it the other day from Victoria & 41st to Knight & 57th and it wasn't as bad as I thought. It was late that night and it wasn't snowing at the time, so it was nice and peaceful. I also had a great evening with the ^2 gang that night, having crappy bubble tea and spicy hot pot.

Watched "Yes Man" on opening day the other day during the coldest day (negative 12 degrees celsius) of the season. I actually wanted to watch the Despereaux movie about the cute CG rat but we gave into Jim Carrey instead. The movie was alright... I've kinda lost interest in the guy, just as for Will Smith.

Just today me and my brother decided to hook up the old TV that's been sitting in the living room with the plasma so we can essentially play at the same time. I originally thought the TV was unpluggable due to the lack of plugs we have back there (the power bar already has to handle the plasma, 360, ps3, ps2) but there was a free socket on the other wall I never noticed. Now my beautiful ps2 graphics look so much more proper on a normal tv rather than the widescreen plasma. I also don't have to worry about the game burning itself onto the screen with its automatically placed black borders. The downside is that my brother talks a whole damn lot when he plays when I'm around in the same room as him. He's recently started tackling my Resistance 2 as a medic so he can't stop complaining about other players and complimenting himself about how great of a player he is *rolls eyes*. I'm gradually getting used to it by zoning him out and focusing on my game. At least this setup is good for when we need to play the ps2. This'll work until I need to switch back to HD gaming.

I also want to make a snowman. But not by myself.

I can't find anyone who wants to do it with me.

Except a friend who lives across the continent.

One of the many fine quotes in Wild ARMs 5

Chuck(♂): Rebecca, I got an idea! Can you hit this?

Rebecca(♀): All right! Ready anytime!

Holiday Part-Timers...

I had the most frustrating phone conversation today.

I called up this jewelry store for my mom today to ask for the availability of this particular ring she was looking to get. It was unavailable at the closer location, so this lady kindly wrote down the details of the ring for us.

This is where it begins. I called up the other location... I get an obvious heavy Chinese accent salesguy on the other side. It starts off as usual, I enquire about the ring that was shown in their catalog. He disregards my question completely and instead asks me what my name was. And I was thinking, don't waste my time guy, and so I asked back, "Why do you need to know my name?" He answers it helps him serve me better. Grr okay fine, I give him a name, and then he goes into a full introduction of himself. AMG.

He continues, "So how can I help you today?"

"..." I thought, I already told you when you first picked up.

Okay, he asks me for more information about the ring, say, how it looked like.

Okay, wait, what was this serial number the other lady at this other location wrote down for me?? Apparently, the number is largely USELESS. And better yet, the "name" of the ring written down for me said, "10KW FANCY RING". Apparently that wasn't the NAME, in fact, it was a "description" the other lady probably wrote down that only SHE understood.

So here we have one or two useful clues, it's 10K and it's white. Obviously not enough information for the salesguy. So I went on saying it was a thick band, with jewels only on the front, and had small jewels etc... Again, he ignores what I say, constantly saying, "I'm sorry, I do not know which one you're talking about."

Well, sir, if you listened, maybe you would know.

He asks me for the first few numbers of the serial again. And he then asks me where the ring was located. I told him it was located at the front of the store and he was like "no, that area's 438," my ring being 418.

"That was where it was at the Richmond center location."

"Are you a salesperson working there or a customer?"

"..." Would I not address myself as a salesperson at the beginning of the conversation if I really was one? "No, a customer."

Then he prompts me to tell him where I saw it in the christmas catalog. 3rd.. 4th page maybe, I didn't remember.

"3rd page are all coloured."

"Then 4th page."

"No, there isn't any 10K white jewelry on this page."

Holy shit then look for yourself FOR ME, why don't you.

He gives me the description of a completely different ring. No, didn't the information I've given you already tell you enough that it's completely white??

He then throws a question at me, "Is it a channel ring?"

The first thing that crosses my mind was, you mean that ring in Tales of Destiny I had no idea what it was for? Channeling ring was it?

Mister, don't use terminology your average, typical jewelry-dumb customer would not know, so I ask "What's a channel ring?" And he tells me to ask a sales person what it was. I was like, uh, I'm not at the store right now... so he goes onto explaining it.

NO, it's not a channel ring. I JUST said the jewelry is only on the front half.

He asks another question using terminology I didn't know, though I don't remember what the word was (started with a g). The word had to do with whether the jewels were small or big. I already said they were small the first time.

So... this rant being longer than I expected, he finally did find the ring and kept it on hold. Judging by the time he got off work, he was a part timer for the holidays. So perhaps it was a good thing I didn't get to see who he really was. Dear Allen.

The actual ring, btw, looked like total crap. Didn't end up getting it.

TF2

k something short because I'm exhausted from a whole day of chauffeuring....

So Steam was kinda evil and put Team Fortress 2 on sale for the weekend. A friend saw the opportunity and tempted me with it.. and without much effort I went and got it.

It was kinda strange for me to jump right in without going through some sort of tutorial or something one would usually go through to get used to a game... but anyway, I've tried CTFI and follow-your-cart modes thus far and haven't played the latter one long enough to say much about it. Not that I'd have much to say about capture the intelligence either. It got better when I kinda figured out what some of the lingo was (spiral stairs? long stairs? WUT?) but I've still got lots to learn, especially since I haven't even tried all the jobs yet (Scout, Spy, Handyman Dude). I'm terrified to try the handyman job. Where exactly should I be building 'em turrets? In fact, go back a question, how do I even BUILD a turret?! Something about using someone elses WEAPONS? How the fff--

Maybe I'll just stick to burning the crap out of people.

XBL and AGH SNOW

It's 3AM and it's the weekend.

It's been a rather unexpected so far.

First, Kozu somehow convinces me to use a 48-hour gold trial for XBL with him Friday. He should been studying, but that's another story. My timing and his turned out rather bad on Friday, so I ended up not playing with him at all. Instead, I ended up playing Gears 2 and Castle Crashers with Derek (I guess I'll call him by his real name now?) until 4am ish. I was surprised we (and the rest of the team) shredded through normal horde waves up until wave 39.. that was when we all died all of a sudden.

The next day, I suddenly had the urge to play Fable 2. So I ripped that out and was going to go online with Neku but with Kozu's bad timing, I ended up playing Gears 2 again. This time, we tried everything else but horde which was rather interesting.

My original plan for the weekend was Wild ARMs, MegaTen and L4D but now I don't know how my Sunday is going to be like due to the following...

Second, SNOW. WUT THE FFFFFF is going on. WHY IS IT SNOWING! We were planning on watching BOLT Sunday (John Travolta! and funny pudgy hamster in a ball!), but now with the snow packing, I don't see that happening anymore! I absolutely hate driving in the snow. Though... I still do need to drive my mom tomorrow morning so I'll still need to venture out into that nasty white stuff. Speaking of which, I should head to bed so I can wake up tomorrow.

2010 Olympic Tickets

So we didn't get picked for the first round of 2010 Olympic tickets. The next thing to do is to fight for the leftover seats during the priority access period which started at 9AM this morning.

9AM I woke up and logged in.. lo and behold I was directed to a VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM and it says:

What is the Virtual Waiting Room for?
In an effort to be completely fair to all Canadians we have developed the Virtual Waiting Room, used to randomly allow access to the ticketing system during busy times such as this when all visitors cannot be served simultaneously. You are currently in the pool to be randomly chosen to register your account and build your ticket request.

By 11AM, after reading up on the latest news as the usual places, I was still waiting. I didn't get to sleep in as I would of liked to today so I crawled back in to bed.

I got up again at 1PM to find that I was redirected to the main page. When I tried to get started with the booking and buying, it timesout and redirects me back to an effing waiting room.

It's now 3PM, I wasted all morning waiting in this stupid room. Time to move workstations closer to the PS2. My retarded monowheel bike is calling for my attention. Well, at least the weather's crappy today so I'm not missing much.

EDIT: 4PMish - I get redirected to a page saying they SOLD OUT. Next round of tickets is in May. D:

Hello Christmas Holidays!

It's heeeeere! It has officially arrived!

I've been working on my final project for Monday's class the past Saturday and Sunday evenings (my mornings are given to sleep) and decided to keep it simple, thus being able to sleep early the night before. Turns out mine wasn't as boring as I thought, as my all Javascript website outweighed all the Flash-ful ones. My website ended up to be a Myst-like "game" where you walk around a made up town where different areas played different music. My images were taken from about three different eroge and my songs sourced from about maybe 3 eroges and 4 'normal' video games. My images were strictly backgrounds only (lol yes there's no pr0n) but if I had the time (or I should say, if I wanted to spend the time) I would've put some actual characters in there to interact with but NO that's okay, I decided against it. All in all, it was a fun mindless project to end the semester.

After class was over, Vee had a last minute bday gathering for her special day however we got off class early so we separated and met up again at her place at 5:30. I got to experience Eminem's amusing FACK song for the first time. Her bf got off work early and offered to drive us all, so we made our way to the restaurant, Grub on Main St. More "gang" started to show up to fill up the 10 person table. The place was rather quite different than we all expected. The place was "cozy" (aka. small) and the food was light rather than heavy (e.g. healthy organic wheee~), which equals to $$$. Our PUNCH was 19. Bread was 8. Pasta that looked like instant noodles was 17. BUT the pizza was good. Only the artichoke one.

The service turned out crap so we gave less to no? tips and left. Some gang left while the left over gang went to find a place to eat the cake (cuz apparently Grub charged for bringing in foreign food - 2 bucks per frickin person)... we ended up at Esquire to have some tea/coffee/chai with the cake. There was the cutest and most obedient Chow-Chow mix dog sitting outside our window.

PORTABELLO MUSHROOM.

This morning I woke up early to catch some of the 4th year's major presentations. To be honest, only half of the ones I saw were impressive, even though I only did see 7 of them (I came in late to miss the first one). The stuff they were doing was already what we just finished doing plus more. However, the better ones felt like they had a better foundation of their company/concepts as a whole.

Later that day I checked out that over-advertised Hello Kitty jewelry made by Simmon's. 495 for the prettier necklace. Screw that.

Onto better usages money - So I'm beginning to make a list of things to get at HK and AX. I'll put it here for my reference:

[ HK ]
- Code Geass Relations Illustration Book (OH GAWD! THE PART TWO!)
- Mutuality Illustration Book - CLAMP stuff in Code Geass

[ AX ]
- Hayate (Alter)
- Haruhi Rockstar ver (Max Factory)
- figma Lelouch (so I can abuse him)
- Mitsurugi Meiya (GSC)
- Yashiro Kasumi (GSC)
- Kagami Sumika (GSC)

Left 4 Dead: Round 2

Ok so I mentioned I tried L4D demo on 360 and it didn't wow me at all. At the spur of the moment and after people convincing me, I got the PC version instead and yes, just like they say, it's different when you play with people you know. The AI's.. just... boring. You need to verbally yell at someone to be satisfied, seriously. Like this one kid we met who coincidentally lives in Vancouver too is like.. so retardedly silly. He purposely goes out to FIND trouble and we're like WTF what are you doing! Why are you purposely looking for the witch?! And then he likes to run off and gets himself killed. Yet we still play with him... I don't know why we can stand him though. I guess he's harmless besides the fact that he's a troublemaker. ;b

Oh and also, I love shooting my teammates.

Being used to playing with friendly-firing that doesn't hurt, L4D is kinda hard. LOL.

Last Week +1 Day of School

This week was insanely brutal.

I decided to start on my project early (as in on Sunday, the day after I came back) for the Tuesday infographics class. I only did figure out what topic I was going to do just last week so I knew I was already pressed on time (considering we had it assigned a few weeks ago). I ended up doing a timeline slash character relation chart of .hack series (specifically Project .hack) because I already have the knowledge and the [somewhat] resources sitting around. When I first started, I actually wanted to do the whole series (that is, including the G.U. stuff) but after I slapped on just the timeline without the characters, I could already predict it would be way too much work on my end. I actually wanted to include G.U. considering all the old characters that took on a new persona in the new chapter but regretfully, for the sake of my health, I decided against it.

K so even just Project .hack was a pain in the ass. I've had to refresh my memory for almost every series and had to do additional research. It was during my research I found out the awesomeness that seems to be brimming from G.U. and actually makes me want to finish those silly .hack games.

After working on it all Sunday evening until 4am, I even skipped Monday's class to get more of it done and didn't end up sleeping until 5am that night. Well one thing was that no one in the class would know .hack (minus one person who has played but hasn't finish the .hack games), so I was safe from anyone pointing out any glaring errors.

Thursday was presentation day. I missed the first batch of presentations last week as I was out of town so I didn't know what to expect or whether my presentation was enough. Either way, the presentations went all right. I felt that no one really grasped my concept as well as I'd hoped but it seems like the teacher at least knew... but that was only because he was with us one-on-one, developing our concepts. Soo I felt disappointed in that sense, but at the same time, I figured it was already over anyways, so I shouldn't care anymore. After class, we treated ourselves to all you can eat sukiyaki at Posh. And additionally, bubble tea next door at Pearl Castle. It was a great way to finish this week.

Though, there's still one more project/class left too... AND I've yet to start. I don't see myself starting until at least Saturday though. I NEED A BREAK.

Black Friday: Shopping, True Blood, No Sleep

It has been an insane past three days. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Thursday:
Slept at 6am the night before, trying to convert True Blood to PSP format as I almost forgot to do it. Woke up at 10am that morning to have some decent breakfast at Angel before arriving at the pick-up site at 11:15am. When we arrived, we can already tell this tour was going to be full of the usual prissy old women, just like it is every year. Our bus arrives 15mins late and to our surprise, our tour guide and driver are the same two guys from LAST YEAR.

We got on, then went off to other locations to pick up more people, crossed the border at 12ish. People already started crazy shopping at the duty free. Made some stops on the way and arrived in practically dead downtown Portland at around 6pm. We once again had Todai, the expensive but insanely good all you can eat everything restaurant. The crepes were so disgustingly good that I had frickin' two! After feeling full, satisfied and gross, we headed back to our hotel where we rested until 11pm.

Friday:
12AM We were then sent off to Woodburn where the midnight madness was supposed to begin, however at Woodburn, the midnight madness was actually named the MOONLIGHT madness when they actually start an hour earlier -- 11PM! We were all handed a eco-friendly bag filled with some stuffers (a bottled water, a chocolate candy, a granola bar, coupon book) and then we were on our merry way.

Our first stop was Ecko as it was right in front of us from where we were dropped off. I picked up some shirts and was about to get a hoodie as well but the last one of my size had a giant hole in it so I didn't. On the other hand, my brother went insane in this store... a bit too insane perhaps. After leaving the store with two giant, heavy bags, we went off to find the parents which were joining the crazy crowd in Fossil. My mom got some rather expensive jewelry in there (hm, not watches this year it seems) and I ended up getting some expensive earrings myself. We went through a bunch of other places but the only other store I went crazy in was Aeropostale... Tommy Hilfiger apparel has disappointed me this year. The designs this season felt boring, and extremely reused. I was looking forward to perhaps renew my love for it but it was a total disappointment. By around 4:30am, we finished walking the whole mall and decided to rest at a hot dog selling restaurant owned by Koreans? by supporting them by buying a hot dog from them, then chilling until 5:30am which was the pickup time. The driver guy ends up arriving at 6. I prompted to ask the tour guide lady "So you guys are rather late." and she just answers with "yeah" well that was actually a cue for you to redeem yourself woman! But whatever, I was mainly furious because our next stop was Fry's and the place actually opened at 5am.

Fry's Fry's Fry's... When we arrived at 6 and got inside, we saw the massively frightening snake line that formed right to the entrance area (we didn't even have to go in much deeper to see it). Our time limit there was only 1 hour, so there was no bloody way we could've gotten out within that time, even if people were to start lining up right then. We were already digging up goodies but had to drop them because we knew it was impossible. So we left and headed back to our hotels. We almost had no plan on returning to Fry's because apparently 95% of the people on the bus did not want to go. The 5% was just our family of four (sadly) plus this one older geezer too but he ended up chickening out so he doesn't count anymore.

It was 7am and we made it back to eat the complementary breakfast. Then people went to rest/sleep/etc. I showered and then decided to kept myself awake instead. I hung outside in the lobby the whole time, surfing the free internet and then watching True Blood on my PSP. At some point there were a pack of boys who were on the computers playing Runescape for the longest time. That game seems to be thriving quite well still it seems. 10:30 rolls around, woke up the family, and then headed out at 11 to Portland downtown's Pioneer Place aka. Saks aka. Fifth Ave. For some reason the actual Forever 21 store did not glamour me as much as the online store itself. We also stopped by Ross where we loaded up on even more clothing. We dinnered in the food court, sat around aimlessly for about 1 1/2 hours before the pickup time.

We headed to Washington Square after picking us up at 5:30 where the 95% of the people were dropped off. The four of us were VIP driven to Fry's were we wanted to load up on electric material but unforunately for me, I ended up leaving with only an awesomely wireless cheap mouse and keyboard. On the other hand, my brother found a number of price dropped games, in which he snatched up immediately. My dad also refrained from buying a pack of 100 AA-batteries for 20$. He regretted it the next day.

We were done well before 8, so we gave the driver and tour leader a call (they went off to eat dinner) and they came and drove us back to Washington Square. We headed inside and went straight to the stores we had our eye on. I went to MetroPark to find out that they no longer sold Toki Doki apparel, and that was extremely upsetting. I did a bit of shopping at Victoria's Secret and also passed by an EBX and grabbed Left 4 Dead PC. We grabbed ourselves an orange julius, did some more last minute shopping at Macy's and hopped on back into the bus for our ride home (hotel).

It was nearly 9:30 at the time when we arrived and Best Buy closed at 10. We knew there was one right next door so me and my brother dropped all our stuff at the hotel room and ran our way there. We ended up making it 10 or less minutes before closing. The crazy blu-ray disc sale was swept clean, but my brother managed to find something else instead. The place stayed open well after closing as there were still plenty of other last minute shoppers.

Saturday:
The morning was brutal for me, having to wake up at 7 and out by 8. We had our complementary breakfasts and then loaded up the bus with our stuff. We began heading back north and took at stop at Westlake Center. We were only allowed to stay there for a bit over an hour so it was a bit of a shame. There was an Olive Garden across the parking lot, but eating there would take up the whole time, so we decided on food court food plus some mall wandering.

After the short break, we were on our way again... our last stop being Seattle Premium Outlet. We got there around 1, and we had until 3:30 to do our thing. Me and my bro split off from our parents to get to the places we wanted to faster). Our first stop was Lucky Jeans to get some mmm comfy pants. Unfortunately for me, the wash I wanted was not available in my size (both waist and length) so I didn't get anything. However, once again, my brother got what he wanted. We forgot to bring our passports when we paid by card, but luckily they accepted my Canadian drivers license :b... The only other store we needed to visit was Ecko. I was determined to find that hoodie that I wanted at Woodburn but the only one in my size there had a giant hole in it :(. Luckily, with a bit of digging, my hoodie was found! After that, we were done! The next challenge was to find our parents. It didn't help that my mom doesn't pick up her phone when you need her most.

We wandered the whole mall until we caught her lining up for the Coach store. I joined in on the line up to ensure that she comes out alive in that chaos. After that store, I think it was safe to say that we were officially done. We got back on the bus soon after for our ride back to Vancouver. As expected, the lineup was already horrible, even on the Saturday. We took a quick stop at the duty free, picked up some stuff up to our limit (liquor cough) and then went through. Only one person had to get off to pay customs fee at the border cuz she wrote quite a bit on there.

Throughout the whole trip, I read through a volume of Shugo Chara, and watched all of True Blood. I got a bit paranoid watching that on the trip, especially during the sex scenes.. which happened rather frequently lol.

Overall, the trip was satisfying. It was a break from reality, but it wasn't exactly stress free either. The staying up overnight with no sleep was a bit tiring but worth it, and I don't mind doing it again actually. Though the parents feel otherwise.

Preparing for Black Friday

It's that time of the year again when we do a little crazy shopping when it's not even our country's holiday. We'll be heading down tomorrow morning and will be returning Saturday night. Seeing I was going to miss a day of class (especially on a day the major final project is due), I had to work my ass off the day before to get everything done and handed in. When I got home from school and had lunch, I started working around 2pm, took a break at 7 for dinner, started again at 10 and worked until 3am ish. After that, I just slacked and stayed up just because. The whole load off the chest was a wonderful feeling today though. I only had to rush around to exchange more US$ and pick up our HK tickets, followed by a rather boring PDF-training class, in which as usual I wasn't listening.

My usual manga loot also arrived in the mail today meaning I'll have ample entertainment for the ride down. I've also prepared the rest of the season of True Blood which I'll be glad to catch up on considering everyone else has finished it already.

On a short note on gaming, I finished Gears 2 the other day with my brother. The Hammer of Dawn is amusing. I'm still contemplating on getting gold though. I would imagine online will be insane.

Now that I don't have to worry about school until at least Sunday, I'm going to treat myself to some gaming tonight.

Playstation HOME beta

So I woke up at 3pm today thinking I might get around to some cleaning around the house perhaps before ramen dinner downtown. I went downstairs to prepare myself for some food making and turned on the laptop as usual.

I first get a msg from my bro telling me he just sent me beta keys for HOME beta which he got into. I figured HOME might take a while to download so I popped it in promptly to download. When it was done, I thought I'd take a quick look at how it was and how it fared against the other consoles. I ended up a bit frustrated with how the facial features were customized but at the end I managed to create someone decent. As I followed the tutorial, the last part sent you straight into the virtual world lobby. Of course, as soon as one enters, one must explore! And thus that's what I did.

I ended up exploring, type chatting and messing around almost till 6, messing up my plans to plan my way downtown (and getting ready in general e.g. change into proper outside clothing instead of pj's). Getting downtown takes more than 30-45 mins via bus and especially as I didn't know where that ramen place was located I would need to allocate more time for myself. The original meeting time was 6-6:30 so it was given I wouldn't be able to make it. By then, I gave up on going and ended up bumming around on HOME for the rest of the night.

The rest of the e-mail that came with the beta code mentioned as "celebration" happening from 6-8pm pst so everyone started gathering. We end up getting stood up and I was only able to stop "playing" HOME when the servers went down at 9pm. In retrospect, that's a lot of hours in a VIRTUAL WORLD (NOT a game), and I can't believe I actually did that. I have yet to try the virtual bowling but I did get a few games at the pool table which was amusing to say the least.

So to sum it up, I didn't eat anything today... I ended up finishing this strange logan drink I picked up at T&T the day before, if that counts as food? I really looked forward to eating ramen, if it wasn't for my other friends who backed out on it thus I didn't have a companion to go with, thus not keeping me in check, thus making me not care about the time, thus missing it completely. I am not too fond of traveling downtown alone, but if I were to go, I'd have to prepare myself (mentally, physically, everything) just because the area's still so foreign to me (wut, but you're born in vancouver wtf! - yeah yeah). I haven't eaten at that place before either which made me want to go even more. But man.. I'm hungry though it's too late to eat now.

Also, later that night I also started playing Gears of War 2 campaign co-op with my bro. Pretty fun stuff I must say.

Dead Space

So Dead Space isn't as scary as I thought (hm, I've been assuming too many games are scary without actually trying it as of late huh) though it's still not a game I'd play. However, I've been watching my brother play it instead and it's actually a bit frustrating watching him. He seriously fails in console FPS. He's playing in easy mode too and he can't aim for shit.

('cuse my language.)

He's a trophy whore too so he's going to have fun playing in hard mode. Hahaha.

Dear PS3 Backwards Compatibility

So I got home today from school and totally felt like playing a console RPG. Magna Carta's out of the question. I have no plans on touching that for another half a year at least (trying to keep the game as far away as possible). I stared at the 360 and the options I had. I considered Vesperia, but I wanted to get to Legendia first (I have a thing for chronology). Infinite, Lost Odessey - at the very end of that backlog list. PS3 doesn't have that many choices to begin with. Disgaea 3 but I haven't even played the first one. Then I suddenly thought of Wild ARMs XF which I plan on getting to after Suikoden II, Saga Frontier II, possibly Persona 2, but before getting to that game is Wild ARMs 5. Thus I found a winnar!

I put the game in to the PS3 and waited for the intro. NO ANIME OPENING. Right, I saw that coming. But there wasn't even much of an opening to begin with actually. Plus the intro song felt like they stole the first few notes from Chrono Cross which annoys me to no end. Anyway, throughout the first "hour" of the game, I ran into about three game freezes and got fed up. I did a quick search in the backwards capability database (oops, I should've done that beforehand) to find that it was not perfectly compatible with the PS3. D'oh. Luckily my PS2 was still sitting here, wrapped up and collecting dust so I cleaned it up and plugged it in instead.

The PS3 improved the graphics quite a bit so it was a shame I had to downgrade. Either way, it's nice to play a console RPG again. It felt like it's been a while since. The last few RPGs were played on the PSP so staring at a big screen (however not fitting to the widescreen) was refreshing. Hm, come to think of it, I could've played remotely too...

While on the topic of gaming... I tried Left 4 Dead just to see what the bloody hype was and well... since I played offline by myself, I didn't really see the same hype as everyone else. The look's rather unrealistic (after watching Killzone 2 videos, this looks pretty weak :x) so it's not as scary as I originally thought. Also seems like most of my friends will be playing on PC but dude, I'm getting the 360 version for like 20 bucks. 'Cept I'd have to subscribe to XBL if I wanted to play online. Bah, dunno what I'm going to do yet but I'll see. Maybe I'll find the PC version for cheap during Black Friday (which I doubt considering it's brand new but you never know).

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth - Purify Completion!

Valkyrie Profile completion 3am ish. Verdict: Get thee hence!

Story 4.5/5
Alright so I enjoyed the story. It was a bit sappy which was completely unexpected... who would've thunk this game would have romance in it. There was an interesting twist to it which you realize a bit past half way through the game - whoa 'gods' aren't really what you think they are?!

I played to a certain point and aimed to get the 'A' Ending, which is the 'correct' ending per se, allowing you to see all the cutscenes and get the, ultimately, happy ending.

Even though I say the story's good... they're still quite a number of unanswered questions, mostly regarding the past. I would only assume it's answered in VP: Silmeria or VP: Hrist, if they ever make the latter one.

Gameplay 4/5
The gameplay is truly unique to this series. Your chosen 4 characters are each assigned to a button and in battle you can build up the combo meter to allow them to unleash a finishing move at the end of their turn. It was great of a feeling to have "unlimited mana!" as you were able to cast whatever you want (one spell) in your turn (when you can go) but mages often had long charge turns. So remedy this, you'd beat on your enemy like a punchbag to make them drop 'magic gems' which lessen charge turns. However, they don't always go straight your mage. So your solution would be to beat it even more and hopefully some of those go to the mage.

The period and chapter concept was something I was first afraid of. Oh gawd what if I went and wasted important time in a place I wasn't supposed to! The story turned out to be a lot more linear than I originally thought. I ended up having a lot of free time after going through most of the revealed places. That was my fault for picking the Normal mode instead of Difficult.

The difference would be the available dungeons, and available players you can recruit. I actually might just want to play it again in Difficult to grab all the other people. But essentially I went through the correct main story and got the good ending.

Characters 3.5/5
My favourite was definitely Lenneth and her story. The little Arngrim, Mystina, and Lezard bit was rather amusing and I've grown to like that trio. Now I'm just dying to know what the past life deal with all about. I need to dig up VP: Silmeria.

The other characters didn't particularly leave any crazy good impression. The fact that I took the 'A' ending, I didn't get the awesome Einjerhar I sent up back. I liked all the characters I sent up and if I was able to play with them for a longer period of time, perhaps I would've liked the rest of the cast more.

My final battle players were Lenneth, Aelia, Janus and Shiho. I hate Janus for his weak RDM (defense) and he was essentially the useless one by the end of the game. He hit things for 0. All the mages were all the same to me, so I just stuck with Shiho. Aelia was able to use one of the better weapons made from a broken spear, so I kept her instead of Arngrim.

Sound 4/5
Voices. Why is it always the voices that kind of ruin your experience sometimes? My favourite voice was Lenneth's for sure. And then... for the rest of the cast, it was Pokemon all over again! Brock was disguised as Lucian, Ash was disguised as Aelia, Misty was disguised as Jelanda, Jesse was disguised as Mystina -- they were EVERYWHERE! Some of the voices were so badly done.. it was a bit annoying, but you got used to them.

As for the actual sound, like say, the music - it was GREAT. The music Motoi makes for Valkyrie Profile is so different, I loved it! All the tracks were great up until the staff credits roll, which reminded me too much of Tales.

Graphics 3.5/5
Nothing much to complain about it nor was it anything particularly special. The extra 3D cutscenes were beautiful and it added a nice touch to it. Makes me wonder how the original anime cutscenes were like.

Overall 4/5
The music and the story really did it for me. The unexplained plot holes and nasty voice acting ruins it a bit but the overall aftertaste was good. It makes you want to know more of the story which S-E should work on instead of releasing that other Lenneth side story on DS.

And a side note, the Tri-Ace logo easter egg in the final CG cutscene was amusing, emerging from the ground.

Jello Night

So following this tradition-to-be (?), we had our second food-theme night (first one being takoyaki) at Mina's place. I woke up at 4pm that day (mmm~), played R2 until 6ish, got ready, and then got there a bit after 7. I bumped into Lester on my way up and only noticed the other attendee (minus the hostess) being Lisa. We were hungry so we ordered some delivery Go-Go Tea (minus the cosplayers) and had jello while we waited, watching a bit of Knocked Up on tv. Other people started to appear as time went by (Vee, Chris, Gillian, Jay, Tyrone) and tried other strange solidified liquids. The food comes, we then started watching True Blood off Shaw On Demand. I believe the rest of us has gotten addicted to this show. Vampires are hot, except when they're called Bill. Makes me wonder if that's the vampire show that had the Wii golf bit in it. I guess I'll find out eventually.

Remembrance Day - though the post is unrelated really

Day offs are great and I just woke up.

So Sunday I followed my parents out for their usual routine (food, shopping). At some point, we ended up at Richmond Zellers and I went to the gaming area as usual to see if there was anything that stood out. I spotted the 360 elite box with the label I've been waiting for all this time - BONUS Panda n Lego game inside! The label was a sticker and the game was stuck outside of the box, so it was slightly different from what I saw online. Either way, the price was also not right so I had them check it for me. The person I asked help me was actually a elementary/high school classmate who actually was a bit of a delinquent (which I accidentally said aloud to him when we were trying to remember each other "weren't you a delinquent.......(shit!)" lol) in school and dropped out before we graduated. He (John) didn't have his dyed blond hair and his "gangster" look so it took me a while to recognize him.

When I got home, the first thing I tried was the power plug - the issue I had with the previous one. Andd.... IT FIT. I went online and browsed around and wow, the prices for the XBLA games were kinda pricey for what they're really worth. SO I tried Hexic so far (since that was the only thing that was free) but it's nothing new since it's a bloody free game on MSN anyways. There weren't any games I want to play yet since I'm already working on two RPGs (PSP), an FPS (PS3) and a platformer (PS3).

I think I'll wait and try and buy some msn points for cheaper. I won't be subscribing either until I know there's games I'd want to go on and play on a regular basis. But for now.. maybe I'll just stick to demos.

Ooooh brain pain

6 hours of continuous Resistance 2 is too much for one's brain to handle. But damn it's addictive. I'll have to keep in mind for the future to take breaks in between to prevent giant migraines from reoccurring just like today.

Search Engines Nowadays

Teacher: "So what search engines are out there?"

Student A answers instantly, "Google."
After a short pause, student B asks, "Doesn't Yahoo have one?"

lol.

Has it been that long since Google has become the mainstream search engine?

Blog is finally up-to-date!

I can't believe I'm finally done tagging and publishing all my posts from Forevermore. I didn't realize how time consuming the whole process is too, especially having to read through all the posts to know what to tag it.

Reading through posts over a few years old were a bit amusing too. It's kinda interesting to see how I've grown and matured (lol orly? :b) and how bad of a student I was in school. Seriously. I did so much complaining. I was also a bad social blogger... I feel bad for all the people who used to read and follow my blog. I also updated my sites/domain a lot. Look at me now. I do nothing of the sort, harhar. I also used to play a lot of MJ. I kinda miss doing that.. sigh.

It's nice to know my posts at least seem a bit more meaningful than what I used to post. I seem to post as much as I used to too. I guess that doesn't change. :D

Video Games Live in Vancouver

Wednesday was VGL in Vancouver at the Orpheum, Downtown. That morning, Keith's class was canceled so I got to sleep in. Woke up and had McDix and then played Resistance 2 for the whole afternoon. Almost lost track of time, so I rushed out a bit after 6PM and got to the Burrard skytrain station a bit before 7. On my way down, I bumped into Simon and gang so I joined up with them and followed them to get some Japadogs. Unfortunately the Japadog crew had already retired for the night so they went and had some sort of donair variation. The food from lunch kept me full, so I just got myself a drink.

We then got a call from Tony C, so we went and met up with him. We took the food to the Orpheum and stood around outside and ate while waiting for the other half of the group. There were insane lineups by the time we got there and a rather lack of good cosplayers. We bumped into Lee there, who was also waiting for his gang of friends.

When the rest of the gang showed up, we headed in, did a quick pit stop (bumping into Matt) and then headed to our seats. I looked to my left and lo and behold, I saw Gar, Saboo and crew. It was just sad I had to sit with someone who was rather untalkative with me (but would rather talk to Tony, wah~).

As for the actual concert - it was your typical geek fest but the audience was relatively well behaved. The retro intro was pure nostalgica... There were a number of "Whoa, I played that game before!" moments, even though I don't remember what the heck the games were called. The MGS one was one of my favourites and I don't even play MGS, and yet I know the theme song rather well. I gots to see Raiden rekick ass in the MGS4 scenes.

There was a little Blizzard tribute. They featured WoW (duh) and Starcraft 2. I crossed my fingers and hoped they'd do a third and play Diablo 3, but sigh.

The Halo track was great and neither do I play that too.

The first encore song, One-Winged Angel, felt like the most boring song to me. Maybe because I've already heard of a billion remixes of the song, so it didn't feel particularly special to me. (Second most boring would probably be Kingdom Hearts' Hikari... again, heard a better orchestrated version of it song.)

After the concert, we bummed outside for a while before we figured out where to go. We ended up walking to Bubble World and chilled there for a while.

I didn't arrive home until 1 and I had class in the morning at 8. So tired.... however! Resistance 2 beta ends today! I must play until I can play no more! LBP servers are up now tooo~

Ugh why does work require me to work so much earlier this week. It's being an annoying obstruction. Work fast, work fast.

The End of October and FFXI

LBP servers are still unstable.
R:2 servers has been rather unstable since I started playing it a few hours ago.

I quit FFXI in 4 days, officially (for real this time). Well, technically today, since this'll be my last Limbus this week, and I don't do anything else in game besides that.

I think it's fair that I'm going to use up all my points for this last run to get whatever that drops. After putting almost a year or so worth of effort into Limbus, I deserve it. I see it as a parting gift.

EDIT: The run didn't even end up happening. We started losing people while we were waiting for a bunch of crucial players finishing up Salvage at the wrong time. They ended up doing an Apollyon run, while I went and had dinner.

Well, so much for FFXI.

Anime Expo 2007 Report

Hokay, so! I've been meaning to write up on it since I came back *cough*, so here's my year old report. The whole thing compressed into one giant post. Alright, here we go~

Wednesday, June 27.
This year's travel buddies consisted of Saboo, Gar, Nina, Shi2 and myself. We got up bright and early to catch an early flight down, arriving sometime before lunch. We basically had a whole day to burn, so we decided to take the opportunity to explore the Long Beach area. We ate at Chilly's and then walked the boardwalk near the convention. That night we had Pictochated away. Nina went to join her other buds the next night.

Thursday, June 28.
That morning, we needed to stock up on munchies and misc items, so we walked to a Walmart. On our way there we also encountered a GameStop where I picked up Gurumin. At Walmart, we split up - Shi2 and myself went and grabbed some (at the time) exclusive to USA wraps (grilled chicken with salsa or something was it?) at the built-in McDix and headed to the convention. The pre-reg line was, as usual, a scary snakey thing outside the side of the building. While we lined up, we enjoyed our wraps and played whatever mobile gaming devices we brought with us.

After we got our stuffs, we decided to be even more adventurous by taking the transit in attempt to "tour" around Downtown LA. We had to transit through scary town (the place started with a C) and a really open area that, due to the speed of the train, hurt your ears like there was no tomorrow. We got off in the Financial District, assuming all the other districts were relatively close to each other. That was where we were SO WRONG! We kept walking and walking (encountering number of interesting artefacts, mind you) but decided to give up when stores began to CLOSE on us. We at least found a mall or two, and Shi2 was able to do some shopping. I think we ended up as far as reaching the edge of Jewelry District or close to the Toy District. Then we started to get pissed and decided to return back, as it was already getting dark too. What a disappointment... Not the "Downtown" we had in mind, like ours. ;(

Oh yeah, on the transit way back, I experienced something horrific. Disgusting actually. While sitting on the outside isle, the guy had to stand when clearly there were a lot of seats for him to sit on. He was rather tall and wore shorts so his crotch touched my shoulder constantly. Constantly, as the train kept moving, he used the train's movements to his advantage to ... okay, you get it. AMG. That has never happened to me before, ever. It's because it's so rare, I remember it clearly, even now. SICksicksicksick... I tried not to be conspicuous about it by leaning more and more towards Shi2, and I think she noticed what I was doing too.

Moving on.

Friday, June 29.
Finally. The registration line was lololol long. Luckily it didn't concern us anymore. We went to grab some free tickets to the SKIN concert at the ticket handing out area. Then started the day with some good ol' Starbucks before taking on the infamous AX concert lineups. However, the first thing we did (or I did) was line up for a sneak peek of the dealers room. Shi2 joined me when I reached near the entrance.

The next thing on the list was that SKIN concert. The bloody concert gets postponed by oh just a FEW EFFING HOURS. They made us line up outside on the BLOODY HOT PAVEMENT of the parking lot Poor cosplayed Gar was dying in his costume. Well, the postponed concert totally ruined all the rest of my plans of meeting other people and such. When we finally got in, they TOSSED MY NEW SPLASH WHATEVER GUM. I didn't even get to eat the bloody thing. They were soo annoying with the bag checks, it was anger worthy. I regret not sticking the whole pack into my mouth so it didn't end up being another additional freebie for the door checking people.

The SKIN concert itself was pretty crazy cool. I swear Gackt is overrated (note: I don't particularly like him). Miyabi is the funnest guy ever. I'd want to marry a fun (and cute ;D) guy like him. Yoshiki looked like a man-woman, woman-man. And I'll just leave Sugizo as he is, because with Luna Sea status, he cannot be touched! They allowed filming so I basically recorded the whole concert (just comes to show how much I was really paying attention ;b). Due to the super delay of the concert, I ended up being unable to attend the SOS-dan panel, therefore unable to meet up with the ccsbb peeps, which was where I originally planned that we meet up. For some reason, I forgot that Shi2 brought her phone that worked over on this side, so it didn't occur to me to give them her phone number. Duurrr...

That night we ate at Bubba Gumps with Nina and her fanclub. We had a Forrest Gump quiz and I couldn't remember a thing.

So when I finally came to my senses, we went back to the hotel when I busted out my PSP and hacked (lol fluke) into the hotel's internet and went on the ccsbb and posted Shi2's number. Moments later, we got a call from Ray saying ToFu just read the board (what timing!) and contacted him who was still at the convention. We met briefly and stared at the room he was crashing at which was actually in the same hotel.

Saturday, June 30.
Attended the savage genius concert that morning. The kind of room she was given was SO unforgivable! I realize they're not extremely popular, but at least more popular than, say, ORESKABAND, I THINK YES?! I felt that her concert, and her presence in general was overshadowed by all the other major artists, mainly the SOS-dan. However, that applies to all the other concerts I went to too. More on that later. The setup of the ROOM (yes it was a bloody normal meeting room in a hotel) was rather awkward... some seats on the side, and a 'stage' up front. I'm glad Shi2 joined me in the concert, cuz the lack of people were rather depressing. I tried to stand for most of it, but it was tiring (did I mention awkward?) mainly because no one else was standing. Everyone in general weren't really "active" and just sat there listening which made the whole concert AWKWARD as HELL. Doing things by myself were way too out of character for me, but I felt so bad for them. She sang most of what was on their first CD - Uta-Kata, Erementar Gerad... I love 'Forever...' to bits, so the live was GREAT. It's also great when they try to speak English. XD They're really under appreciated and it upsets me a lot.

I missed the Ishikawa Chiaki panel.

Anyways, we met up with the ccsbb crew again and took our daily visit to the dealer's room. Me and ToFu encountered the famous foldy cardboard chair/couch. Then I was like AMG I need to go line up for the savage genius autograph session, so I ditched the gang and ran to the line up area. When I got there, I noticed there was another line that formed there and it was soon revealed to be the SOS-dan autograph line. The SOS-dan had a rather ridiculous VIP-treatment (what about all the other JUST AS important guests???) and were limited to their autographage to like 30 or something (I heard). And you weren't even allowed to SEE them, you only could hand them the item you wanted signed. BULL.

Either way, I didn't care for the line and only wanted my savage genius line to start. I asked around but the staff were CLUELESS and just told me to wait around. There were a bunch of other people who were waiting for the savage genius line and ended up waiting with me. Then all of a sudden, for some reason I recognized this one peculiar person's face from The World BBS forums (duh where else really) and was like... oh that must be Kozu. I wasn't sure how to approach but I just went and approached and was like hey I know you, you know me yoyo wuzzup (something to that nature cough). I waited with him for his highly anticipated autograph and at the end, he didn't get it after all. He was pissed the whole time but I had him come get a savage genius autograph with me anyway.

I brought Kozu with me back to the dealer's room where we met up with everyone again. He then split off from us to hang with his own group to get ready for the SOS-dan concert. We got ourselves ready and headed. I recall it being not so fantastic. They had the seiyuu do their theme songs, then the English VAs came and invaded the show. Then suddenly there were technical errors and the English VAs suddenly had to make up stuff on the spot, which ended up being completely confusing for the seiyuu who didn't know wtf they were doing. The coolest part was probably the winning SOS-dan dancing groups got on and joined in with the actual cast and did the song and dance together. The end. Nothing too spectacular imho. Overhyped as usual.

Sunday, July 1.
Happy Canada Day! I remember the Ishikawa Chiaki concert was that day. It ended up being me and Kozu going to the concert (c'mon, it's all about .hack y0). There was a lack of people for sure. Once again I felt even she was underappreciated. Maybe if people knew that she was part of See-Saw, it'd fill up a bit more. There was definitely SEED (anna ni issho datta no ni??), SEED Destiny (kimi no sugata wa, boku ni niteiru~), uninstall, could be the simoun op, at least three or so .hack songs (yasashii yoake, kimi ga ita monogatari - I think, and obsession as encore).

Later that night we encountered a fountain dolphin bleeding water out of its chest. Animal cruelty I tell you.

The ccsbb crew weren't staying the last con day so they left and we said our goodbyes. Until 2009...!

Monday, July 2.
Momoi's concert! I regret not getting some of her merchandise! The grand finale was her concert and hers was the MOST unappreciated. She's the QUEEN of AKIBA and the concert hall was empty. You ended up not requiring a ticket to go in and they basically tried to get as many people as they could to go. Once again, it was me and Kozu who went and we got super close seats (well we didn't even sit at all). Her concert was probably the most upbeat and fun out of everyones. She started breaking out in tears half way but we kept cheering her on! Ahh she's so cute. I'm glad she sang some of Komugi's songs. Afterwards, we were able to sign her little AX book where we were allowed to write comments. There were a number of reports saying she really disliked her stay at AX as the staff didn't treat her well it seemed and she generally had a bad time. Awww.. I feel so bad for her :( I hope she doesn't have a bad (she probably does) impression of us people on the west side.

Oh I also got to meet 8-bit from The World BBS as well.

OVERALL.
Generally it was a fun con. The 2+ hours lining up under the blazing sun of Cali, upset guests, underappreciated guests... the location wasn't that great but it was a nice change. Meeting up with everyone and just having fun is the best part really. I've learned my lesson and will prepare more properly for the next visit. I look forward to AX09 in LACC. :]

Gar's Annual (?) Halloween Party + Aftermath

Alright! It's that time of year again! Partying it up, Halloween style.

So who was I? Faith from Mirror's Edge and it's not even out yet! Free plug!

The day before, I was busy trying to get the last few essential pieces of my costume done. I thought it would speed things up if I used a sewing machine so I headed to Lisa's place to borrow hers. It didn't work out as smoothly as I hoped - at all. Firstly, for the top: the white strips I needed to sew on the sides were really thick with the tank top's own layer so the two layers kept stretching in the machine at it's own lengths and so it ended up completely uneven. I wanted it to be perfect, so I had her help me remove it so I can redo it. She got frustrated and basically violently ripped it out, resulting in an insane number of holes in the tank top. As a perfectionist, I decided to go and buy myself a new one and hand sew the stripes on instead. Secondly, the gloves: so I found a pair of red gloves finally at the Richmond Centre dollar store except it had a Christmas theme so it had a chunk of green at the bottom, plus a little bell and bow accessory. The bow was easily removable (minus the glue which I easily melted with some hot water) but the green part was grr-worthy. After I cut it out, I tried out a few ways to close up the gap it left. Finally I ended with something I was fairly pleased with. but still not as close as the real thing as I'd hoped. But I did so much red gloves searching the past few days prior, I was ready to give in to what I had available (and so I did).

On the actual day, a few hours before I trip there, I had Monica help me draw in my tattoos. The body paint I got was pretty crappy and it made an effing mess everywhere because of its crappiness. It was also very crayon, so you can imagine how that's like already. Looked like garbage so we took the Sharpie method and outlined it pretty and then followed to colour it in. Monica was getting stressed with the stencil I made and also because we were pressed on time, we rushed it and winged a chunk of it.

We left my place at 6 and went to pick up Sty at her place. Got to his place to find that Gar the host wasn't dressed up. Instead he was busy being Cooking Papa (his new nickname now). We found the usual SG crew already there getting their Rockband on. The night followed with Castle Crashers, more Rockband (The Paperboy and the Papers) and random other games. The night was also filled with lots of food, food and more food. We also did the random flavoured jelly bean game (gosh, I'm glad I only ate normal flavours and no baby wipes or earwax flavours). We ended up staying there until 5am. I got home and realized I haven't camera whored yet, so I did some quick webcam fun on my laptop and ended up sleeping at 7am.

I woke up this morning and headed to EB to grab mah LittleBigPlanet! They called me the day before, but I was getting my costume ready at the time. Also picked up SOCOM and headset set! Mmmmm headset~ Can't wait to use it during LBP and whatever else in the future. Still impatiently waiting for Zellers to get the 360 Holiday Bundle. BestBuy apparently has it now. GRR.

Halloween Costume Status and Takoyaki Party

Alright! So I'm mere pieces away from my costume for Gar's annual (I guess you can call it annual now) Halloween partay. The theme being Video Games, which was actually rather difficult for me! I went through all my games, did some serious surfing and found all the characters I wanted to dress up as were actually more difficult than it seemed. With limited time and being super lazy, I aimed for something simple and not too elaborate. My actual decision will be revealed on the actual day! I just need to get myself a pair of white pants (grr @ my old, missing pair), maybe grab a new top so I don't mess up my own when I sew on the little [easy] detail, some cheap red gloves (damn you daiso for not having red in stock!) aaaand that's it I think. It's a shame my hair's not my natural colour, or it would've fit in with the role a bit more. Either way, I'm rrrrdy and actually getting kinda hyped for it!

Ooh, on the weekend we had a takoyaki party at Romina's. She had her own takoyaki making machine so we (or rather, they) made their own homemade takoyaki (I didn't do any cooking). So we basically had takoyaki for dinner (nothing but waves and waves of takoyaki, srsly). We visited T&T for some extras like drinks. Man, that night was cold. We smelled big time when we left her house. There's been some brainstorming for the next gathering - jello, crepes, hotpot... mmmm.

PANTS

I should have these white pants from my dentist days... I remember hating them because I hated the job. They should be in a bag somewhere. I NEED YOU NOW - WHERE ART THOU?

Tales of Destiny 2: Beated

Alright, finally something more fast-paced!

Story - 3/5
Honestly, I disliked the story. It was like a mix-mash of all the previous Tales (Phantasia, Eternia, Destiny) in a not so good way. We have time traveling from Phantasia, alternate worlds from Eternia, and the chunk of Destiny's story to mold it all together.

So we have the offspring of Stahn and Rutee, named Kyle, who wants to be a hero just like his parents so he sets off to become one. He encounters a giant lens and out comes a girl. He chases after the girl to become the hero she's looking for. We get thrown into the future, the into the past, then back to the present. I personally liked the Swordian arc the best just because I liked the whole Swordian story altogether. But anyway, so this goddess gives 'birth' to two other goddesses. One of the goddess' ideals of a perfect world is retarded, which ends up changing history completely, so we basically have to stop her. What I don't understand is where these goddesses come from exactly. The power of lens evolves and creates its own conscious and then takes the form of a human? Someone tell me.

Characters - 4/5
Originally I never understood why Leon was such a loved character until there was Destiny 2... now I understand completely. Now I love the guy to bits. It's just depressing to know that he has to live in the dark for the rest of his life. But it was awesome how he brought out Chaltier at the right time but wait, there's a plot hole - if they didn't travel back in time to bring Chaltier, how did it end so smoothly at the end of Destiny? I thought they didn't have enough power without him?!?

About the other characters... I only liked Kyle, Judas and Harold out of the main group. Loni was annoying. Nanaly was annoying. Reala was exceptionally annoying. She had this strange personality change right after she spoke with Philia and became all hyper and happy. Annoying. However! The skits were humorous and fun as a whole cast.

Sound - 3/5
A lot of remixes and enhancements from the original Destiny. Nothing really special or memorable, sadly. Battles were really noisy, which isn't exactly a bad thing but it just reminded me about how Tales series are usually anyways.

I don't particularly like the theme "key to my heart" either.

Graphics - 4/5
I don't know but Destiny 2 kept reminding me of Ragnarok Online - in town sprites anyways. The world and battle views were very Eternia. Um, the spells were pretty?

Gameplay - 3.5/5
World map running is tedious. Boat rides are tedious.

Battles are fun. I had this habit of draining my SP meter really quick though. No visible HP total was frustrating. How much did you start the battle with? Will a 30% or a 60% gumi suffice?? I can't tell! If your controlling character ends up not located on the left side of the screen with your other characters, your SP and TP meters shorten and all the characters on the left screen will get their ass kicked. It was a weird battle condition that just effs you up.

The skill and equip enchant system is quite complicated. I had trouble with it so I just configured the essentials and didn't bother experimenting. I usually set my skills to Attack+, SP/TP recovery, and Hi-ougi's. Equipments were all focused on SP/TP recovery.

I don't think I even touched the refine option. I tried refining my savories, lavenders, etc to some reds but it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

Overall - 3.5/5
There's quite a number of dislikes for this game and too little likes for me to give it a good overall impression. Some of the boss battles were challenging, and that's a good thing. The last boss didn't turn out to be a wuss. The ending was surprising.. the whole [spoiler]it's all going to be just a dream! bs. And how Reala somehow comes back to life...[/spoiler] The last scene was obvious and I know they want a happy ending and all, but that just felt like they just to put it there to make the protagonists canon.

Judas unmasked was the highlight of the game, seriously.

I don't know what game to play next.

Eff You 360

So like... I decided to finally open the 360 for me to play on the long weekend.

It didn't happen as smoothly as one would have expected. How complicated would you think it'd be to hook up a new gaming system? Shouldn't be much right? Right? WRONG.

Apparently 360 players are a bunch of assholes. K wait I take that back. There's this one particular 360 asshole who decided to buy the 360 I bought, swapped his power block and resealed it so it looked brand new. Now the resealing part isn't really difficult actually as I put it all back together at the end "brand new" as well. When I tried to put it together, for some reason, the power cord that went into the console did not fit. I looked at the cord plug, then at the socket. The socket of the elite (which is the one I bought) had an extra square piece sticking out, whereas the plug had a blocker there instead. Duh! They weren't meant for each other. What was even more frustrating was that there was a lack of imagery online to check whether I was really hallucinating or not. I gave up at the end and figured it was easier to just exchange the bloody thing.

So today I went to do that. It was a relatively smooth process and I would've basically ended up returning and buying another one. The only other one available on the shelf looked like it got punched in by someone, so I decided not to grab that one either.

I read about that holiday bundle the other day so I've decided to wait for that instead (it also has two free games!). I've been hearing that it's already out though but I've yet to see it.

Super Stardust HD

I came home yesterday from school and was totally like, I feel like playing on the PS3. So I booted it up and decided to give Super Stardust HD a try, as the other option was the Nova one.. and Nova's style of shoot em up gameplay is even less my style.

Holy crap.

I've been playing it non-stop the past two days. I've gotten the trophies (minus 10x multiplier AMG!) without expansions, but I'm leaning on getting it really soon.

The game is GREAT. It's just missing the most essential feature: ONLINE CO-OP.

WHY. It would be PERFECT with ONLINE. WHY!

And 10x multiplier is hard.

The highest I can get is 8x.

My right thumb is a bit numb.

Now I'm tempted to open up the 360 just to play the closest counterpart on the XBLA. STILL. It's not.. the same! But I've been itching to play online on something... so I might just rip it open this weekend just to get my fill.

EDIT: My highest is 9x. DAMN.

Revelations: PerSAUNA - Finish!

Finally after that rather angry rant post, I forced my way through the end of the PlayStation One game, Revelations: Persona! So I thought it'd be best to start from the very first installation of the series just so you can see how certain things can relate and how the series evolved, which is cool to me. However, this one was a rather challenging one.

Story - 4/5
I personally liked the story even though it's actually not all that unique. So Persona is actually a poltergeist game (is that what they call it?) where you call upon the spirits of the dead kinda thing. So the kiddies who played the game become able to call upon different personalities within themselves, which they call Persona (different personas, get it?). These personas are actually spiritual beings that can fight/protect their owners and whatnot. And so for some reason after playing the game, the city becomes infested with monsters (aka. spirits/ghosts/etc that are similar to personas). So after researching around, they find out that this big company's behind all of it by researching and practicing forbidden ghost calling stuff all for the sake of taking over the world (haha). But he was a minor problem cuz in reality there was a BIGGER entity controlling what was going on. Spoiler: It was actually a close classmates dreaming up her own world, and the ideal her jumps from her world into yours to tell you to save their world cuz it's all messed up and you wonder why. At the end it's that girl's evil side of her personality wanting to destroy the world cuz she's unhappy with it.

Characters - 4.5/5
Haha the characters were actually all really fun. The translation's kinda funny in places which makes it that much more amusing. Mark danced crazy! And it made the whole game kind of a serious... joke. Cuz you'd be trying to amuse your enemy by dancing, singing, lying, everything just to get them on your side. I liked all the playable characters (in my party anyways - I ended up choosing Chris as my final optional). The character voices were not bad and it was interesting to hear that all the enemy voices were kept in Japanese and some of them spoke Japanese when you made contact with them (if not, they'd be grunting/screaming). I also realized that some of the monsters were based off of horror stories (like toilet monsters, scary geisha women, ...) and others were just spirit-related (angels, devils).

Gameplay - 2/5
It must be because of its age. First Suikoden 1, now Persona 1 - two turn-based battle games in a row is way too much for me. How AGI works drives me crazy - it's never consistent! It was cool to have multiple ways of attack: sword/archery, gun, persona. Each enemy has its own strengths and weaknesses, making that aspect the most challenging part. The last boss was a cheapass (read my previous post on this). The second most challenging aspect was PATIENCE. Each turn took about 30 seconds (the time before my PSP light goes into dim mode) and on average each battle was about 4 turns. Then you add in the action selection time, and then transition in and out of battle. The last dungeon that didn't have a save point at the end took my over 3 hours to get to the last boss (I started around 11pm and finished the game at 3). I also took a few extra hours in the afternoon to level up the guys. I the last 10 or less hours of the game was just dedicated to GRINDING, leveling up my personas and beefing up my guys. I seriously need a change of pace.

There was a steep learning curve with the controls as well. I had trouble figuring out how to change personas, then other troubles would be buying new equipment. The game's actually rather deep (especially with persona creation) but it becomes -so- complicated, you'd rather skip it... unless you're super dedicated to the game.

Dungeon crawling was annoying as it was an effing MAZE. Encounters were frequent (and I heard the NA version had encounters lessened too - unbelievable!) and dead ends suck big. But I loved the "sidestepping" with the R1 and L1, which makes no sense irl but saved time with the body having to face the "right" direction when walking like a normal person. At least the first person view was kinda interesting.

Music - 3/5
I like a handful of tracks. Though it felt like there weren't too many to begin with (but apparently there's a 4 CD OST... that I can't get my hands on). Most of them were whimsical and fun, and I particularly like the boss themes. I was also amused how they made the battle song end at any point by applying the same style ending no matter what part of the song you finished your battle at. The Yin-Yang store's BGM they kept in Japanese and was amusing to listen to.

Overall - 3/5
1996. Damn old games are hard. This game was challenging and frustrating. It was a great ride though (minus the effing grinding) and the story was fun. The last boss was easy when I got the proper spell to send all the damage back at her. Man, back-to-back B-Storm spell was cheap. The game's unbeatable without a proper reflect spell. This game required some pretty smart strategy and it was fun in that sense.

Alright, I'm ready for a new pace now. Bring on Tales of Destiny 2.

Revelations: Persona

No, this isn't my review (yet). I WAS hoping to get it finished tonight but I just got my ass kicked by the last boss. Wow she's hard. Finally, a last boss that's actually hard. Though, I'm not particularly happy the fact that I had to go through that last dungeon with like 10 floors without a single save point. SHIT.

Fuck you butterfly lady.

I need to fucking get MagicWall somehow and send her shit back at her.

The Lately Me on Manga & Anime

I recently (like, yesterday) got hooked on Tegamibachi by Hiroyuki Asada-sensei, who draws the cutest/hottest guys (a la I'll). And the crybaby cuteness and touching story reminds me much of Kimi no Kakera which I missed lots of... Plus his illustrations are so clean and crisp -- aah I love it! Another great series to add to my follow list!

And the following is for my own information (and if you care to read)...

Series I am following but have no intention on purchasing:
- Kaichou wa Maid-sama!
- Minami-ke
- Bakuman
- Koko ni iru yo!
- Special A
- Boku no hatsukoi wo kimi ni sasagu
- Pandora Hearts
- Bokura ga Ita [mangaka has this on hold! :(]

Series I am following but would like to purchase one day but the series is too damn long:
- Katekyo Hitman Reborn
- D. Grey-man

Series I finished following but would like to purchase one day but the series is too damn long:
- Shaman King
- Houshin Engi
- Black Cat

Series I, uh, need to catch up on but have no intention on purchasing but considered on purchasing it in the past:
- Gakuen Alice
- Soul Eater
- Nabari no Ou
- Arakure

Series I am currently following and am purchasing:
- Shugo Chara!
- DNAngel
- Lagoon Engine [mangaka has it on hold]
- Air Gear
- Tenjou Tenge
- Vampire Knight
- Ouran Koukou Host Club
- Tegamibachi (NEW! now, yes!)
- Shitsujisama no Okini iri
- Erementar Gerad
- Erementar Gerad -blue flag-
- FIVE
- SOUL GADGET RADIANT
- .hack//GU+
- Kimi no Kakera [mangaka has it on hold]
- WORLD'S EMBRYO

=

7 Shoujo
9 Shounen

Not bad.
Though, I think... that above last list is way too long.

...and on anime I'm currently following: NONE! I don't see myself returning to the world of anime for a while... unless it's Code Geass (and maybe Haruhi) related!

Speaking of Code Geass.. I've been mad reading theories and there has been some great debates out there. My conclusion is still Lelouch is alive with C.C. That's all there is to it! I also read about Taniguchi's struggles with R2 and I feel for him. It'll be sad to see him stop because of it. I love a lot of his works (Gun X Sword, Scryed, Mugen no Ryvius).... and that reminds me, I should watch Bamboo Blade to see his little guest appearance.

LittleBigPlanet Beta

So yay, I got my hands on the LittleBigPlanet beta thanks to Nekura. I was just going to wait for the official release in a month but he had hands on two so he passed me one.

GAWD the game is cuteness overload, but at the same time, some of the puzzles are so intricate, it can get into the serious side of things. A good chunk of my weekend has been dedicated to it already and look, it's already over.

So beta's beta. Means that it's still buggy in a lot of parts - e.g. personal stats get reset to zero, pod decorations might disappear, bunny ears sometimes disappears or bends all weird, have issues connecting to other friends (both ways), serious lag issues, insane glitching during fast motion moments, one person might see something different than another person and somehow end up finishing the stage out of the blue, etc etc...

However! It's been insane fun so far. It takes up so much of your time and you don't even know it. Some of the levels built out there are really good. Playing multiplayer is so easy (when it doesn't bug out on you - which isn't always), and everyone's so good spirited and understanding, which is great.

And people have made so many stages out there already the game never ends!

End of Code Geass... Goodbye Lelouch

[code geass: hangyaku no lelouch R2 spoiler + ramble]
So has Code Geass finally, finally ended. Just a bit about the whole series in general - I love little diabolical smart guys (*cough Light*) and Lelouch is so much more charming than Light (c'mon, he's a bloody prince for goodness sake). After Light's fate, I feared Lelouch would share the same... it only does make sense that "karma" (if you would like to put it that way) will come back and get you, or you should realize your mistakes and make up for it. Well, in Lelouch's case, he thought it was the best thing to atone for his crimes... so yes... we saw his death coming. But throughout the whole series, I had that glimpse of hope that his case would be different at the end. Somehow, he'd atone for his crimes, yes, but at the same time he didn't need to die himself.

The end was just so... well, shocking for me. Who would've thunk Suzaku would (for one thing) be alive AND be the one to kill Lelouch AND take on the role of Zero. I was shocked that he died at first (finally died, FOR SURE - or so I thought) and I was all like OMG you can't leave Lelouch alone you douchebag! You guys are like BFF! Then there's C.C. At the end, she didn't get to die and now she gets to live on for another billion years! And what happened to the love you guys developed?? Lelouch just ditched her girlfriend! But at the end, C.C. was rather happy so there are many ways to interpret this. 1: Lelouch is in the world of C, and so they can keep contact (yay!) 2: C.C. after experiencing love, has a new outlook of life thanks to Lelouch 3: Now that she's not bound to the crazy schemes of the Britannia family, she's free to start over and maybe not have to do anything Geass related. But then, what would be her reason for living on then?

The first option would be the happiest, I'd say. Or my friend Hsui brought up the fact that Lelouch might've pulled a Marianna on somebody (maybe Suzaku) or maybe the guy that was pulling the wagon. I don't know but I sure hope they throw an OVA or extra episode at us. Most people aren't wishing for it, because they prefer the open interpretation, but for me... it's way too suspenseful.

So Lelouch's actual death moment. I cried. I haven't cried in a while and... I felt so upset. I know it's expected but the way that he died was so noble... so smart... so Lelouch and yet not Lelouch (because he died! c'mon!). And Nunnally. Something's up with that girl. She can read minds by touching someone! The birth of Nunnally's PSI or Geass perhaps even. But when she cried, I cried along with her. Just thinking about the scene again makes me upset. The moment was further intensified with one of hitomi's wonderful tracks.

Sigh.

There might be another story about the Geass'. Looking at the title "Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch," it's a story about Lelouch and his chapter's over. That could mean that there might be a "Code Geass: Insert someone other subtitle" about someone else. That could be draining the whole concept quite a bit, but it's just a thought that crossed my mind.

AND ONE MORE THING. R2 = R.R.! MAYBE MAYBE HUH HUH?
But wouldn't that be L.L.? I guess L2 doesn't sound really cool now does it. So let's use the R of the L instead, Rerouch Ramperouge. YES.
[/spoiler]

Importing Forevermore

So I just imported my old blog and merged it with this one. I couldn't import the comments from Forevermore cuz I used a separate service at the time.

Going through and tagging 600+ posts is going to be FUN.

Females Onry

K so this is the first Females Onry post. Means it concerns issues that may be very feminine or "female only" topics. Tags are great.

So I had my first underarm hair laser treatment the other day. I bought a package of three, so I'll be returning for more later. At first I was extremely paranoid that it would hurt like HELL so I was debating whether to get numbing cream or not. When I actually started thinking about how realistic that is for me to actually go and use it, I realized I'd be too lazy to. So I went as I am and it went a lot smoother than expected. They put this gel over my skin and then use the laser stick thing and zapped one arm at a time. It basically felt like needles digging deep into the skin, but it was an instantaneous feeling so it went by real quick. 15 minutes later, I was done. The aftermath felt just like a wax job, so it was easy peesy handle-able stuff.

Makes me wonder if laser teeth cleaning works in a similar fashion.

Ouch.

So... I dropped my Rolex on the kitchen floor today.

Unluckily it fell on the wrong (or is it perfect?) angle and the sapphire crystal crackled oh so wonderfully. Now I'm going to have to get it fixed which'll set me back a few hundred. Damn.

Onto other news... the crappy rain weather has returned which sucks. I had more to say too but I forget.

Genso Suikoden: Finish

1996 PS game finish!

The oldest game I've played as of late. And it's not a game you can underestimate either!

Story - 4.5/5
K so it's a story that revolves around war and you play the son of a respected Imperial General. Your empire is being corrupted by war (and a crazy lady), so you have to gather 108 stars of destiny to revolt against them. Every character you encounter had a part in the story, which made the story all the more interesting (minus a few random ronins who were actually related to the main/side stories).

Characters - 5/5
I really enjoyed all the characters. You'd imagine with 108 characters, you'd be unable to have any emotional attachments to them. You were only able to use a certain number of them in battle versus war battles. Everyone had their unique personality and were all pretty amusing. Even the silent hero you get to play was interesting. Favourite characters were probably Viktor and Flik. Even now I have trouble thinking Cleo's female.

Gameplay 3/5
Of course, this game's old. So if you thought Tales of Phantasia's transitions were slow, Suikoden is 10x slower with 20x slower fade in/outs. Battles were turn based, so you'd be picking all your actions before the everything was played out. You'd have no idea how fast the enemy is, if they'd be punching you first or vice versa.

Moving your character requires a lot of patience. The only way you can run in this game is to use a specific rune in your rune slot for any character in your party, but the slot is precious so you'd be using it for something else more important.

Strategic war battles are insane fun but there aren't many of them in the game. It's when you actually have a battle against the empire with all your troops, picking actions such as Charge Attack, Bow n Arrows, Magic, sneaking and spying the enemy. The animations were SO CUTE! And when you win, you'd hear your little chibi men cheering in their chibi voices.

Magic is quite different in this game. It wasn't until near the end of the game, I finally figured out how it worked. Before then, I would rely on a lot of heal items and a lot of physical violence. The last boss was amazingly easy for me when I finally got the hang of it.

Sound - 2/5
There's some pretty ridiculous sound effects in this game. Especially the little punjabi jingle (my brother calls it) when someone joins your party. The soundtrack doesn't seem especially wide ranged as it felt like I was listening to the same few tracks throughout.

Graphics - 2/5
Did I always have this category? Two words: pixel world. The whole game was extremely 2D, where your character would only move either up, down, left, right - no diagonals. There was a glimpse of a third dimension when you did critical hits during battle modes. The world map was the simplest of all world maps. At least the characters had little illustrations, in which the pixel version of them were quite well translated.

The little pixel animations were quite cute though. You'd do a little spin when someone joined your party (plus the punjabi jingle).

Overall - 3/5
If you put the visuals aside, the game is great. It becomes rather hard when you're surrounded by HD games nowadays, and I'm sure this game was considered good back in its day.

Some of the abnormal statuses were quite amusing, though unexplained. Like you'd get a bucket over your head (I assume that's blindness?), or a balloon hanging over you (you need a Needle - literally - to pop it), or a little dancing devil over your head (which meant you're poisoned).

There weren't any extra quests or difficult modes to choose from (window/sound collecting is nothing). The collecting of the 108 stars was probably the only "side quest" that was not mandatory, but why wouldn't you do it! Did I mention that drop rates for items are hell?

I'm taking a break from Suikoden before tackling Suikoden II. I'm leaning on trying Persona (Revelations). Old PS game continuation fun - GO!

Gasp 360

Hello! We finally gave in. There's a 360 sitting in our living room right now. However I've been informed that there isn't much to play on XBL right now so that's a bit of a disappointment. It's still sitting in its box... at least for a bit longer. Vesperia: it'll be a while before I get to you... I want to finish your predecessors first (Destiny 2, Rebirth, Legendia in that order).

Don't worry PS3, you're still the more loved one. The upcoming release of LBP will reinforce that.

It turns out it isn't the end of WAR for me, just for a bit longer. A friend has offered their CE key to me because of a duplicated order. I attempted to log in and send my regards to my guildies, but the queue to get into our server was over 200! Later that night, it was well over 400. The guild leader also refuses to change servers so now we're stuck. How stressful. Well the official game comes out tomorrow so I'll have to start paying for it. It's more expensive than FFXI and MH. The price is less desirable. I'd rather pay for XBL Gold and get access to more games.

Not sure what to do.

*goes to play her PSP*

The End of WAR

The end of WAR (for me) is near... like tomorrow morning kind of near. The game was fun, but not fun enough for me to go out and buy it. I have serious control issues when I'm meleeing with a mouse (which is why Disciple of Khaine was a total failure for me). Distance is my friend, so Sorceress and Zealot were my BFFs. I recorded some footage.. all glitches. I'll compile them, if I find enough... with the little time I have left.

Oh, scratch that. They closed the servers down early to prep for the CE Headstart early Sunday.

Instant Noodles

The start of this week in life was good. School continues on at its pace. Work becomes more irritable week by week.

FFXI update: Level Sync. I tried it yesterday, syncing up with a level 30-32 party in Yhoat. I kept dishing out way too much hate as a 68 RNG, but it was still fun. I can't help but feel like it was still grindy though. And my upcoming lvl70 Kriegsbeil hasn't dropped in price since I last saw it. I can't afford it, and yet I refuse to feel gimp on my ranger. However, today marks my first day for CHEAP LIMBUS. Cheaper Limbus equals cheaper ABCs (I hope!).

WAR update: Open beta started, though I haven't been playing much still. Now that FFXI is somewhat interesting again (I refuse to get sucked in!), it'll be hard for me to play more on WAR, especially when I've played through the Dark Elves story over a billion times now, and knowing it'll be wiped yet again when the game's released later this month.

As I'm filling my tummy with this awesome bubble tea, I need to force myself to make [and eat] some instant noodles later for my project. (Yes you heard me, it's for SCHOOL.)

3rd Year Commences

The new school year suddenly snuck up on me, and the first week just flew right by. The first day was Dale's morning class Tuesday. We started off with an easy warming up exercise. Finished off the day with Guu @ Aberdeen with Lisa for lunch. It was actually my first time trying out that location and it was actually pretty good. I was surprised that that location had actual sashimi dishes. We ordered too much but it was nummy.

Next day was Keith's class on CSS. He taught Dreamweaver all day. It was boring as hell so I took the time to clear out the receipts in my wallet instead. I need a topic on the website he wants us to make. I'm tempted to make a site on some game I have screenshot access to easily (coughFFXIcough) but shit I've had too many projects based on this already and it's becoming a bit stereotypical for me. (Hate myself for my own love for games?)

Thursday mornings are Rick mornings. And damn. He lectured for 4 hours straight (ok minus 30mins for the break he gave us). It was the most excruciating class since.... the last lecture class we had with him last semester. I also need a retail company subject for this project as well. For this one, I am tempted to do a video game store, but that's so cliche for me by now (on top of Keith's class subject idea) lol. SHIIIIT.

Do I need a new hobby? Be like everyone else and care about well-being, sports, ART? Hurry brain, think of something interesting soon k?

Luminous Arc - Finish!

I've returned to the realm of tactical RPGs, and Luminous Arc is the latest completed in the collection.

Story - 3.5/5
Insanely predicable and cliche ending. But happy endings are good and I shouldn't be complaining. And the plot twist when a certain character totally changes from a goodie two shoes into a badass lolita. It was a good change though. Interesting how they used the whole Christian philosophy and warped it to the extreme.

Gameplay - 3/5
There's so many obstacles in using a stylus in this game. You'd think it's the greatest idea in the world, and it is, but some of the problems I encountered regularly obviously weren't addressed. The biggest annoyance was during cluster fucks, some other guy (could be your own guy or a bad guy) would be blocking the square you want to select. Then you'd be screwed and have to go around for another strategy or end up hurting all sorts of people you don't want to hurt. Not only did other people block the way, but map OBJECTS (a THICK POLE for example) even got in the way. Highlighted squares weren't all obviously highlighted. For example, Vivi who was on a carpet covered her whole square so you can't see weather her area was selected or not. You'd be blowing up your own mates and not know it until it's too late. I also disliked the fact that you couldn't see the stats of the other players on the map at any time during anyone's turn, especially your own (except the person you're currently controlling).

Finding Vitae is a bitch. One, you don't know what the real names are until you go to the workshop to check (or unless you memorized the names). You can only view your vitae list at the workshop too. You also don't know where they drop either. So you'd be running back and forth, hoping it was the one you were looking for. Luckily, I was able to make more than half of my ideal weapon/armor sets.

This game LAGS. Sometimes wiping out most of the enemy doesn't save you from the lag either.

Characters - 4/5
The characters were great. The voice acting was decent, some parts sounded very direct-script-reading and some of the stresses for voices were... stressed in the wrong part of the line which made it really awkward. Nikolai's voice is probably the worst plus the angel was purposely annoying, I assumed. Poyon is plenty amusing, although his tech sucked so I stopped caring for him.

Sound - 3.5/5
There were a lot of reused sound effects. The beginning few bgms were great listens... I think I enjoy the character selection screen the most. I can tell it's composed by Mitsuda too... I swear that's not my reason for liking it!

Overall 4/5
It's been a while since I played a tactical RPG so it was refreshing. The game was overall quite easy, especially after when you get the Twilight Witch (Restore was my best friend on the last boss). It was also very cheap to level up, if you really wanted to. A heal or a stat up granted you 30exp instantly, and 4 turns of that gave you a new level. My winning team consisted of Alph, Theo, Leon, Cecille, Vivi, Mel, Heath, and Lucia. Unintentional balance between magic and physical. It's safe to say the character's were well balanced, which was why... minus Poyon, who had the shittiest tech (accuracy) so why bother with him. I even had faith in him at first.. until I noticed his tech wasn't going to go up anymore if I were to level him anymore. 10+ minute battles are quite exhausting though... however they are quite addicting. I experienced quite a number of red lights during my playtime.

After completing this, I actually look forward to Luminous Arc 2. But I think I'm going to take a break from stylus gaming -- too stressful for your controller gamer.

Burnout

No, I haven't been playing Burnout but my brother has and it's fun watching him play. Online mode is GREAT. It's just too bad I don't play those types of games, or I'd jump right in. My heart will be racing (pun not intended) when he uses first person view (which is mostly always). He'd be hitting into other cars/objects head on and I'd be cringing. It's funny that he's been playing so much Echochrome that his in-game music player is strictly classical/orchestra. He seems to play better that way.

Oh yeah, I've decided to start up a collection log of all the games we own. Sometime soon cuz there's a lot.. and it's scary. We're beginning to not know what games we already have.. it's quite sad.

AMG

We have this marketing consultant who can't see the colour green. Therefore we have to change the whole colour scheme I established for this massive web interface I've been working on the past few weeks.

AMG.

I can't believe this.

EDIT: It's been confirmed, he's partially colour blind.

ABDC S2 & Bus Stalkers

I finally got to watch the ABDC finale yesterday, after missing out on it Sunday and the rest of the week. The results were as I expected, though I feel bad for So Real for not winning even though they had the whole "never been at the bottom" streak going on for them, making it seem like their chances were high. Anyways, fun season. Fanny Pak should've so won.

So I was coming home on the bus yesterday from work, and when I was getting ready to get off, I had to excuse myself past this big guy. He turned to me and said, "You're getting off? Ah, I know cuz I saw you last time." And I was like WTF. Okay, thanks, stalker, excuse me, I'm getting off now and fast.

That's why I HATE THE BUS.

At least there's Suikoden. But the pace doesn't help sometimes.

2nd Last Weekend of August

The weekend failed to disappoint, or at least, it was quite eventful.

It started off Saturday... I woke up early as the rest of the house was still asleep. I drove and dropped my car off at Oakridge and headed down to UBC via bus for convenience. However, the RIGHT bus didn't come for the whole 45 mins I was there. This other guy who was also there for the same bus waited longer than me. A dozen of other buses arrive until ours came, but I was already late for Gar's panel. So a friend in the gaming industry held a mini panel there educating keeners as to how to break into his industry and become something maybe as good as him.

I finally arrive at the site, all the normal university students "Whoa!" out loud in the bus upon seeing a giant row of strange people in rainbow costumes and wigs (who were lining up for the dealers room apparently) - tis AE. I went straight to the info booth to ask for where Sty's table was. She had a table there, promoting her theatres about the upcoming showing of the live action Death Note there. The info booth people were garbage.

I figured the artists alley would be the best bet, so I did that and it took me a while to figure out there was a "more artist tables this way!" letter-sized paper hanging on a doorway. Good signage! (y) I finally find her booth, I steal a badge (I'm not paying $45 bucks for a one day pass and to enter ONE panel) and ran to Gar's panel, entering 10 mins before it ended. As a group (Gar Saboo Nina), we headed back to Sty's panel and they unloaded, then went to the dealer's room. The line up was still as massive as I first saw it from the bus stop. The sun also came out of nowhere, and began cooking us like eggs. I had my trusty umbrella and shaded us, honger style. Apparently, me and Gar could've been able to enter the dealer's room without lining up cuz we were "VIPs" (aka. PRESS and PANELIST respectively).. but we only found that out when we got closer to the door. The dealer's room was a lot more spacious than the multiple room combination at SFU as it was in the gym this time. However, more than half of the stuff there's still fake. Just thinking about that makes me angry. I even posted to rant about it on their forums, hoping they'll do something about it. And I'm not even the type of person who would voice my opinion on these things... I'm a lurker for goodness' sake. I even posted about this before a few years back and yet the problem still persists. They don't learn do they.

However, I did not leave completely empty handed this year. I fancy decorating my car as you may or may not know, so I decided to get a mini Domo plush to hang on my window. Aww he's so cute. Gar and Nina went off to their Phoenix Wright/Apollo 13 Justice cosplay meet, so I stayed with Saboo as she went through the room a few times to find something to get just to get her $45 pass' money's worth (by spending more money, haha). My feet were becoming painful to stand in, so we fled back to Sty's table to rest. Saboo Gar and Nina eventually went off to eat together while I stayed to accompany Sty. 6:30ish rolls around, and I headed back. I missed the bus so I had to wait another 20 mins, sigh. Man, the bus ride back was noisy.

Got back to Oakridge and then dropped by Matt Hon's BBQ on invite. Had a sausage or two, met up with some super old friends/classmates from way back when and did the good ol' catching up talk. There was also another half of people I did not know, nor will I ever know. Actually... to be honest, I didn't know the people there all too well. I'm not even close with the actual host who invited me.

Sunday was full of rain and cloudy periods. May invited me and Mo2 to try out this new church's sunday service in Richmond, so we woke up and went. Eric came by to pick us up and found that the place was actually located in an elementary school. I really like their branding... it's very unchurch-like (out of the box!) and felt much like a "friendly corporate". It'll require me to get a bit more used to it however. Did I mention I love their business card? They used this really expensive coating, which made it all nice feeling and everything!

Ahem, pretty paper aside, the actual service was not bad. I didn't know a few songs and the pastor was an interesting speaker. I think it was only me, but I didn't quite understand his sermon. His example didn't quite connect to the actual scripture especially well, but I think I still got something out of it. Man, after listening to his sermon makes me miss listening to Dr. Stephen Ng over at the old church... he's my favourite speaker. Too bad the people there SUCK so I'm not going back. :(

After service, we were invited to eat someone's homemade chocolate muffin (I called it a brownie... I guess I don't know the difference) and old school Rubien (sp? - lay bun lap) juice. The snack totally filled me but we still went for lunch at Alleluia with Pastor Kay and his family. The restaurant made us wait for soo long, at the end, finding that they claim they called us, but we were sitting right beside the reception so it made no sense. I introduced them to their awesome 3-selection combo meal and they all hopped to it. I had no appetite so I shared a rice with Mo2. Throughout the meal, I got mad calls from MINI from the ccsbb asking me when I'd arrive where they were waiting. Not MY fault they left a message stating WHEN on facebook which I do not check late the night before.

I was dropped off at home where I sped to my car and made haste to Metro. I arrive 2 hours later than they originally posted. I found them (Markster, Sahara, MINI) bumming (literally) in front of the Disney store and I knew it was them without having to call. They were craving the munchies so we headed to the food court and shared some New York Fries. We talked for a bit before MINI had to go, then I was left to entertain.

I suck at thinking of things to do but I started with going to Crystal Mall next door, just to give them a taste of a Chinese mall. I also introduced them to the famous butt moving chair. Then we headed to Richmond and went to Aberdeen but the featured petting zoo event was already GONE! I bumped into Mo2, Braman and friend there who also JUST missed the petting zoo too. Agh - so we went to Daiso, showed them the power of a toony. While we anxiously waited for Shi2 to get off her AE volunteer work, we went to e-spot for some good ol arcade. We saw SFIV. I had them try out the sticker picture machine wakakakaka... the screens were moving so fast so we didn't know what we were doing, but we made some pretty interesting shots. We then spent a good half n hour, at least, drawing on our pictures. Finally I get a call from Shi2 saying she was on her way and I find her outside since she didn't know the place. When we attempted to print our pictures, we get a flashing ERROR message. We were devastated! Luckily the mechanic was able to retrieve and reprint our pictures AND we got our money back for the inconvenience.

Time was beginning to run out so we went straight to the night market instead of having hot pot as I originally planned. I was willing to pay for parking just for convenience sake but I got lucky and found street parking. When we got there, we headed to the food section and ate and ate and ate until it was time to go. Well, more like we didn't have the time to walk the actual night market due to time constraints and we were busy trying food.

To end off the day, we drove them to where they were staying that night (near Victoria Dr and Marine, which was close) and got stuck on the Knight bridge for a while. It was a rather short visit unfortunately, though I told them to come back in 2010. They better. Everyone better.