Penny Arcade Expo Prime 2012: Part 2

Day 2: Slow Redemption

We found amazingly cheap all day parking that morning at the convention centre ($10 flat rate!). Had absolutely no idea why that was cheap the way it was. Never again did we find it.

• Dishonored: Ran into electricity-barriered doorways constantly and died a lot; the people who were watching must've had a good chuckle... and I threw grenades at point blank just because I could.
• Injustice: A great take on fist-fighting with DC superheroes. I was intrigued.
• Sleeping Dogs: Running and fisting is all I remember doing.

Another strangely short list but it was mainly Kojima day. We lined up early to get ourselves some good seats at Kojima Hideo's panel where he talked about his MGS franchise. Very scripted but it was still a great interview to listen in on. We followed to line up for his autograph (and obligatory handshake) right after. It was unfortunate he didn't sign personal items as my friend lugged his MGS PS3, but we all got a standard poster instead.

Gee-off, Kojima-san, Translator-san

For evening foods, we ended up having a strangely huge group of people but still managed to get a table at a Thai place at Pacific Place. We then spent the rest of the night playing Key Largo with the few of us who stuck around.

Day 3: Progress
The last day ended up being the best of all days as we all knew which games we wanted to tag.

• Last of Us: We watched the employee in the back play through the demo live. Another amazing cinematic-feel movie game.
• God of War Ascension: The multiplayer looked interesting so we joined as a team and beat the crap out of the other party. :D
• Lost Planet 3: This demo was a whopping 20 minutes. The main character's design bugged me to no end; too clean and too good looking for a guy in his situation.
• Hell Yeah!: Super entertaining game with great humour and a variety of fun randomness.
• Adventure Time: Strangely fun for a 3DS game. I need a 3DS.
• Hawken: Amazingly fun game. I would've truly loved swag for this great game. Definitely looking forward to this one.

During the last bit of the day, we stumbled around to buy ourselves any last minute swag of whatever that was left.. and unfortunately there wasn't much. Yeah, probably should've done that earlier.

Taphouse nummehs.

Taphouse happened and then it was off to the event of the night -- bowling... with beer. We enjoyed ourselves fries and beer while we waited for enough lanes to accommodate 15 of us. I played like poo. Then we followed to play a few rounds of Dominion back at Rift's afterwards. Can't let the weekend end so... zzzz

The Post-PAX Thoughts

Yet another vastly different PAX experience. This year felt abnormally busy yet, when looking back, we didn't get much done at all. Not my most favourite but it was an extraordinary weekend to hang with friends. The expo has yet again expanded in size and clearly also in fandom considering the speed of how fast it sold out once tickets were available. They dedicated almost a whole floor to the League of Legends nationals tourny, moving the freeplay PC and BYOC to the hard to locate basement area. [Good] swag seemed particularly harder to get ahold of. One freebie I would've loved to get was a Borderlands 2 t-shirt but, for a game that's to release within the same month, the line for it was stupidly long.

The games featured there this year felt rather underwhelming, considering how close the release dates were/are for a good chunk of them. Some of which have already released since this post.

Serious LoL business.

Final notes:

• Missed: SimCity was playable at the Nvidia booth, and I WAS THERE! D:
• Tempted to try but didn't: Fable the Journey, Devil May Cry
• Favourite game of the show: Hawken
• Favourite swag: LoL water D&D Neverwinter glass mug
• That's a super NEAT idea: Cards Against Humanity t-shirt matching game!
• Bamco, why no treat us with delicious TALES?!
• Will continue to keep my eyes peeled for the very scarce Japanesey things.

Last but not least, the roots:

Penny Arcade Expo Prime 2012: Part 1

Day 0: The Pre-PAX
This year was yet another different crew of PAXers. A notable new recruit, Y2James, joined the fray to get a taste of the event and get another helping of Vancouver (and join me for the way down). We had ourselves some nummy dim sum and filled up on Starbucks before we began the journey, and was making some great time until we encountered a series of unfortunate events: traffic crossing the border was rather nasty for a Thursday morning; we didn't think too much of it until we got detained in the border crossing customs office for an additional few hours where they took a ridiculous amount of precious time and our pocket money from us to let us through (reality: needed a Visa for land travel). The longer the line got, the less people there were working at the desks as they seemed to love taking their sweet ass time.

When that mess was over and done with, we continued our journey down to Seattle, encountering disgusting long weekend traffic, and stopped at Rift's new place to find out that he wasn't quite home yet. Since our karaoke plans were ruined, we figured we'd check out the Gearbox & Joystiq Pre-PAX party at Pink's, near the convention area. Ion met up with us and then we chugged our way through that disgusting traffic again, which further added to all the delays that day. We parked near Ion's friend's place, who lived in walking distance to the downtown core where it was held, and met up with more of his friends before we walked our way there.

There was a stupid long line that wrapped around the mall's floor of the lounge when we got there but hey, we had nothing else to do, so why not join in on the lining. After a good hour we finally got in, figured out how this "open bar" thing worked and ordered away. We all knew it was a bad idea to drink on an empty stomach because we (or at least I?) regretted it very much afterwards. Oh the party itself was, well, just a drinking fest. Borderlands? What Borderlands? Oh, yeah, it was some video trailer that was played on repeat on the TVs. The rest of the night was extremely unpleasant but we did manage to get back to Rift's place to pass out on his couch.

The Joystiq & Gearbox (Borderlands 2) Party @ Pink's

Day 1: Hate you, Pre-PAX

Okay, learnt my lesson to not get greedy with an empty stomach because, ugh, not only did I not sleep well, but I felt like shit all morning. The hangover feel did end up delaying our wake and prevent us from getting our usual close parking at the convention. Day 1 notables:

• Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Event: This was quite the disappointment. For a few hour line, standing outside under the heat, we got a poster, a silly photobooth opportunity to pose with giant head-only plushies of their mascots (chocobo, gob, mog, mandy) and a meaningless fizzy drink which we didn't even bother finishing. The only thing to do there was a ring toss game and consoles of each  main numbered Final Fantasy games for you to play.
• Phantasy Star Online 2: There really wasn't a need to play this game, but me and Ion were off it for a few days so there was an itch. We wanted that free mousepad too anyway.
• D&D Neverwinter Nights: The freebies for demoing this game were definitely different from the norm so we tried our luck at getting one of the random prizes. Oh, the game itself was okay. Can't say there's much to be impressed about. Just another MMO?

The first day felt pretty unproductive, as we walked the floor for most of the day. We were extremely hungry come 4ish, so we decided to have food early at no other than the Cheesecake Factory! Regrettably, we checked out Triton's PAX party right after to find FREE food available (and more open bar). Finally we ended the night with the Giant Bombcast Live but ended up missing the VSO (they might have played Chrono Cross AGHRGHGRHGH).

Healthier.

Triton's party.

With the official first day behind us, we looked forward to some better times in the next two days...

Summer Travels: EVO 2012 World Championships

Day 1: Warming Up

Come early Monday morning, the tournaments were well on their way. I headed to the Caesar Palace's to catch Kozu's first match for KoF and to also scope out the floor. Sty finally woke up hours later and together we met up with some people we used to play with in a private Ragnarok Online server many years ago. We opted to have some quick food at the food court and then went back to catch more of the matches, such as the showdown between Noah and Mago, Air well representing Canada, Tokido getting beat by a fellow Canadian, and our .bRO keyboard-playing friend, Roogle's, match against Uryo.

Noah (left) vs. Mago (right)

Playstation All Stars was readily available for playing so I gave that a whirl and unfortunately I wasn't particularly fond it. Also, Street Fighter X Tekken is only amazing because of Toro and Kuro. That's all.

Later that night I convinced everyone we had to do the 24 hour buffet and thus our buffet adventure started with Paris' because of its location. It was sad Paris' has continued to drop in quality; it was a bit of a disappointment but still satisfactory nonetheless.

Day 2: Wandering
Our next buffet was at the Flamingo for brunch. The afternoon consisted of a round of P4A, getting an autograph (and photo) from Daigo Umehara, and wandering around the floor. The room was more packed than the day before so we had less opportunity to sit down to observe the matches.

Capcom's fancy car display plus bored car guard man

Our final buffet was at Planet Hollywood, which was safe to say was the best of the three we had. I also picked up a Evo 2012 T, which ended up becoming my autograph shirt. On the way to and from places, we encountered "celebrities" (sans locals except Air and JWong) which Kozu helped identify.

Day 3: The Finale
After having a string of buffets, we decided to get some fast food before heading to the last and most exciting day of all matches. The floor was cleared of exhibits and was all filled with chairs. Next door was the overflow room where the livestream was set up. Although the commentary was nice, the unexpected streaming failures were rather annoying. Without a doubt, the KoF and MvC3 matches were the most exciting games to watch whereas AE had very little battering between the two players, thus rather underwhelming.

Daigo's final AE match

The Prologue
After having experienced a fighting game tournament in person, it really inspires you to pick up a fighting stick and play some fighting games yourself. The energy, emotions, and rivalry in the room is incomparable to a mere livestream. As for me though, I may have an accessible fighting stick and may get my hands on a game or two, but I would sadly have no one to play/practice with. Despite saying that, I will consider dropping by LV for EVO again next year since flying to LV is rather affordable compared to other US destinations.

So, the next morning we had a pasta buffet. Don't do it; it's a trap! Pastas are so filling! What were we thinking!

Also on the way back, I saw Air while crossing customs. He's a Vancouverite!

And finally, loot picture which lazily includes Anime Expo shtuff too:

Thus ended my summer travels adventures and back to work I went, successfully still pale as a vampire. Take that 45°C Las Vegas weather! However, I did have to deal with a cold/flu/cough attack which lasted me a good 2 1/2 weeks. I'm beginning to see a trend in my health post-travels...

PAX Prime 2011 Report: Part 2

 

Saturday - Aug 27: Disappointments.

• Star Wars: The Old Republic - We played the story option rather than the PvP/Capture the flagball. Eh, it's an MMORPG and I /dance'd.
• Torchlight II - Tried the Berserker this time around and had fun following the big crew of people going around, destroying mobs and things.
• Path of Exile - A point and click game that's free to play. Definitely disappointed, especially after Lester recommended it saying it was like Diablo. Very bland graphics and clunky gameplay...
• Wildstar - A bit underwhelming. A brightly coloured MMORPG that featured rather generic classes and character designs.
• Dead Island - The trailer gave off a different idea of how the protagonist and story would've been like. In the actual game, you're a drunkard who gets kicked out of the club for being a dick. Lovely.
• Rusty Hearts - Insanely confusing controls but the pretty up your character feature is definitely there.
• Dragon Quest Monster Joker 2 - K I originally played this for the swag but it was actually fun.

And the real disappointments:

• The 18-letter Word to your Moogle was missing a letter Sty left back at Garret's. Great. They ended up finding another person with the same letter and handed in the word.
• We were in a group of 4 at one point (with IonFONE and friend) and could've went to get our hands on a free T at the Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One booth but Sty forgot her head. They ran out of T's the next day.
• The Skyrim food truck ran out of food and drinks about half way through its one and only session. Extremely disappointed that they'd underestimate their fanbase.

The food we never got. :((

After another busy day on the show floor, we headed to the Square-Enix panel where Quantum Conundrum was introduced and demoed. The visual style features a cartoony style which would remind you of Team Fortress and the gameplay is very much Portal plus some new features like changing the state of the room on the fly.

I decided to skip the Weekend Confirmed panel since it was right smack between the previous and the Dragon Age panel. The DA panel itself gave us a general outlook of the series and a vague idea of what to expect. Felicia Day showed up and they played a new trailer of the Retribution web series.

By 10:30pm, we were finally ready for some food. We managed to get ourselves a nice, roomy table at the Taphouse where we devoured drinks and happy hour appys for the rest of the night.

Sunday - Aug 28: The last stretch cut short
We got all our stuff packed and ready in the car for our trip back before heading to the convention one last time. We established a plan to follow so we left at a reasonable time to make it back to whatever that was left of the wedding.  Unfortunately things didn't work out that way when some people decided not to follow through with it.

Anyway, the final game I wanted to get my hands on was Resistance 3 and that's exactly what I went straight for when the hall opened. Luckily there was still some space left when I got there. The game felt very reminiscent to R2 but its visuals were definitely tweaked. It was a short but sweet 5 mins of killing which I somehow still ended up 2nd place.

Things got complicated after this but long story short, we managed to regroup to check out Halo Fest and I was pleasantly surprised with the displays.

 

Chief-sama!

Before we left for good, we stopped by to get some cheesecake. <3

On our way up we also had some cheap McDix chicken nuggets.

The haul looked more or less like this:

 

• Favourite Game: ???
• Favourite Swag: Resistance 3 or DOM2 T-shirt
• Missed: Might & Magic Heroes, Borderlands 2, Orcs Might Die!, Wil Wheaton's panel ;<
• Forgot: Heroes of Ruin
• Underdog: El Shaddai
• What happened?: Firefall
• WHERE ARE YOU BAMCO?

I knew Sunday was going to amazing and yet we didn't get to stay for it. Gearbox panel which ended up with free Borderlands 2 codes (USA region or NOT it's still crazy), Tetris DS tourny (I missed out last year ;( ), and probably other random games you discover when you actually take your time walking on the floor.

It was definitely a very different PAX and it wasn't my most favourite. It didn't help that we were forced to leave early to head back for a wedding.  A number of the games on the floor were not entirely new (Torchlight 2, Rift, End of Nations, EVE Online, et al) and some were just not completely up my alley but I didn't mind trying them. It was also quite different walking around with my friend Sty since we don't normally talk about games together, other than the odd game she played here or there. In fact, I don't even know what she has played other than some western games. I personally skipped a number of games I probably would've stopped to try *points to Missed bullet point* but I didn't want her waiting on me. In exchange, her girl power somehow landed some really good luck in a lot of places... don't know how she does it.

I've been asked what the highlight of the trip was and, honestly, I can't seem to figure that out at all.
The trip felt incomplete but what can be done. :(
*goes off to play something*

PAX Prime 2011 Report: Part 1

 

"Mmm you look tasty little human girl, come over here."

Returned from PAX with a minor PAX/Seattle flu. Oh, why me?

Mere days before the event, Sty messages me saying she might have a ticket to the sold out event. Of course she was more than welcomed to join us but she soon found out that that ticket was no longer available. It felt that she was really looking forward to it so I decided to do some ticket hunting the night before we were to depart. I managed to secure two tickets for her and another friend from a cool local who had to give up his tickets for priorities at work. Knowing how scarce these tickets were, especially being sold and bought at cost, I definitely got lucky. So +1 to our passenger list.

Thursday - Aug 25: Yukkuri shiteitte yo!
The ride down consisted of ToFu, Sty, Lester and myself as we took two cars this time around since most of us had to return early for a wedding (ugh). We stopped in Bellingham where we had breakfast at The Daisy Cafe and followed to stop by Trader Joe's, then Walmart and gas in Tulalip, and finally arrived in Seattle for a break at Garret's. Rush hour traffic was bad going into downtown but when we got in, things were a lot smoother. We picked up badges and headed to Uwajimaya for some snacks and asian goodness.  There we met up with IonFONE for the first time, even though we always go down to Seattle for all sorts of things.

Food plans ended up being complicated since our original plans didn't work out due to the timing of things so we went to have some good old American restaurant food at The Ram. Speaking of timing, things couldn't of gotten any worse when a suicide ended up clogging up the highway we were on. A 15 or less minute ride ended up to be 1 hour, and unfortunately the other guys who were in the other car got a good look of the incident.

 
Steak sandwich pickle tower.

We returned to Garret's place after food and pulled out an extremely oversized sake bottle we got at Uwajimaya. Drinking and relaxation ensued into the late hours of the night.

Friday - Aug 26: Too little time.
A large chunk of the day consisted of being busy in the exhibition hall.

• Skyrim - Our first stop since Sty was definitely looking forward to this one. A 3 hour wait vs the content we got to play wasn't worth it, although I saw it coming. You kind of expect it from an Elder Scrolls open world game.
• Final Fantasy XIII-2 - I haven't even played the first one so why would I want to spoil myself? Unfortunately for me, the Word to your Moogle game was only accessible that way. As a complete newbie to the game, the battle system felt kinda dumbed down as you mainly got to choose the different fighting strategies. Perhaps I'll get a better idea of the game once I actually play it. But yeah, spoilers wheeeeeee~
• Bastion - I've already been recommended to play this game but I decided to try it out anyway and wow the demo really impressed me. Beautiful visuals, funny narrative and simple yet fun gameplay.
• Dragon's Dogma - Western influenced 4 player co-op, much like Monster Hunter but no fancy armor and weird monsters, but features the traditional RPG classes. Had to burn the crap out of the poor griffin. :( But it was totally owning my group so I guess it was fair.
• Lollipop Chainsaw - Oneechanbara but with chainsaws and a cheerleader.

When the floor finally closed up for the day, we met up with Markster and began seeking places to eat. Knowing most places were packed, we chose a Blarney's pub/resto which was a bit father away. We got there just missing the rush, but we still had to wait quite a bit to get the waitress' attention and get our food. Although the service was not what we would've liked, the food was really good so we were still satisfied.

We returned to the convention to catch the Giant Bomb panel (yay!). For some reason the enforcers cut their time short so it ended a half n hour earlier than expected. I met up with Neku briefly after the panel before calling it a night.

To be continued in part 2...

FF: Distant Worlds Returns to Vancouver

 
Uematsu was actually here this time.

Welcome back, Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds.

So the actual day (July 27) ended up being horribly planned, generating plenty of frustration and annoyance.

First it was me debating whether I should drive+skytrain my way in downtown earlier or just simply getting a ride from a friend. Figuring that driving should be easier for the way back, I opted for the ride but the driver was late. Another friend wanted a ride in the last minute so we made a detour before heading to our food destination, Guu Garden.  After having a bit of trouble finding the restaurant, we finally sat down but then waited around for two other latecomers.  When they arrived we quickly ordered but the food took ridiculously longer than it should've and so we ended up cutting it short to speed-walk our way there.  When we got to the Opheum, we waited some more for the driver friend to park and get his cosplay gear *headdesk*... many moments later, some of us decided to make our way in first to find that it had already started.

The first track, although watched from the TV screen outside, was FFVIII's Opening (Bombing Mission) which I think was the same opener from the first concert (the footage was the same as well).  Other tracks they brought back from the last Distant Worlds were VI's opera (same three opera singers too!), Vamo' alla Flamenco, and the Theme of Love to name a few.  Some nice additions this time were To Zanarkand, JENOVA, Man with the Machine Gun and You're Not Alone.  They also featured a track from XIV which, in fact, is my starting city area's field music! Speaking of which, bikini update! P:

I wanted to strangle someone when they, once again, chose One Winged Angel as the encore but they did spruce it up this time with karaoke (although it doesn't change the fact that it's still OWA).  This makes it the FOURTH video game concert with the same encore, and I've only been to four in total ever.  I was also deeply disappointed there wasn't anything from XI... although I suppose it would've just been Ronfaure or the CoP theme again :(  See, if they were able to feature Hamauzu's FFXIII Blinded By Light, they should feature something Mizuta Naoshi has done in XI like the delicious Ragnarok or any of his stuff from WotG.  But sigh.  Wishful thinking.

After the concert we headed to Earl's for some food and drinks (deja vu).  Mmmm sangria and wings.

Oh yeah, we had horse sashimi at Guu Garden and, well, you just can't explain what it tastes like so just eat it for yourself to find out.

Torchlight: Click Click Click

Sick days are great for finishing up posts.


STORY 2/5
There was a story? Oh, yeah I guess there was.

You arrive in a town called Torchlight and was asked to help find her mentor who seems to have gone mad and disappeared. You were told he's in the mines so off you go. You, of course, do eventually find him after traversing 30 some-odd levels of this "mine". The lady who recruits you does not help you at all, although you don't need help anyway.

CHARACTERS 2/5
I have no background story so the character class really only determines your play style. The only person with some sort of background is the mentor, Master Alric who's, well, crazy I suppose. What drove him to his obsession with Ember, the main cause of all of this town's chaos, is played out through transcripts of his findings/thoughts when you descend the main story dungeon.

SOUND 3.5/5
The music and sounds in this game bleeds Diablo. I swear the original composer of the Diablo series who joined the team purposely made it Diablo-like. The town theme, especially, sounds just like Diablo's town theme. The sound effects are practically identical (e.g. the scrolls and gold sfx). I don't know if that's a bad thing but it definitely makes the game want you to feel right at home. Diablo's home sweet home feel.

Where's my Diablo... :(

GRAPHICS 3/5
Nothing impressive. If anything, it's outdated and cartoony but I've seen community mods available to possibly remedy this or at least update it a bit if you wished to do so. The simplicity of its visuals reflects the rest of the game quite well though.

GAMEPLAY 3/5
The deliciously simplified version of Diablo, keeping the formula that made Diablo so addictive. Unique to the game is a pet animal that's another additional inventory pack and can sell stuff for you while you're still dungeon crawling. You can also feed it different types of fish for it to transform into other monsters with different attacks and resistances. It's not particularly useful since it likes to die a lot. Speaking of fish you can fish at fishing spots scattered across the dungeon.

OVERALL 3/5
A great game reminiscent to Diablo in almost every way, which doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing but it definitely does make you yearn for more out of the game. Torchlight doesn't feel particularly polished nor incomplete, although its simplicity does do the job for what it is. The devs did mention that they had more plans for the game but due to time constraints, they had to take it out (e.g. multiplayer) which is where Torchlight 2 comes in to fill in the gaps.

The game was fun and plenty addictive but as a whole there was a lot of missing potential. We'll just have to see how Torchlight 2 does to make up for the first.

Ar Tonelico II: vine en vine, zweie arsye yor

Erm, slight review backlog. This is from a year ago. Didn't have the time to put in the final touches. Allow me to finally dump this here.


Story 4/5
AT2 brings us another tale of Ar Ciel, this time in Metafalss where Reyvateils are being affected by an epidemic of unknown origins. Croix (ku-ro-a), an exceptionally skilled knight, wounds up becoming a bodyguard for Cloche, the holy maiden of the Grand Bell, when she gets attacked during her holidaying by a resistance against the church/organization (governing body) she represents. This becomes the start of his investigation into the source of the epidemic and uncovering the powers and history of his land.

Croix isn't complete without his trusty childhood friend, Luca, who's the perfect polar opposite of Cloche. The two ladies butt heads throughout the story but, of course, there's a whole huge reason behind all of the bickering. The two eventually have to come to terms with each other for the sake of the world and their loved one (aka. the lucky protagonist) after they find out their wield more power than they think.

Saving the world isn't a surprising story but the references from the first game definitely make this experience a lot more deep and interesting. Just like the first game, the second allows you to choose one of the two paths (the two girls) which opens up a different part of the story but closes others. There's also a third girl option which usually takes a bit more effort to reach but she's worth it. I played through the game twice again (yes, it's absurd) to get both paths and to finish with two of the three girls. Luca was not one of them, so now you know.

Characters 4.5/5
I really liked how the design direction of the characters in this game felt more mature (although I think they're about the same age as the prev series). Neither main girls really spoke to me, but Cloche was a bit more interesting than Luca. Still, her ending left much to be desired. On the other hand, the third reyvateil was pretty amusing with her sarcastic personality and her quirkiness makes her all the more interesting. I already knew what was featured in the ending from the Concert OST so watching the scene for myself just topped it off for me.

Unfortunately the protagonist is, again, an indifferent guy who is unaffected by the pretty girls who'd die to get in his pants. His (or I guess yours) feelings will change according to how you advance with the girls but it comes off a tad bit forced. The fortunate part, though, is that his character design is refreshing a nice change in comparison to the genericness of Lyner of AT1. His look is complete when he wears his glasses when he's in normal clothing (glasses fetish? me? no way!). Perhaps I'm a sucker for cool guys. Maybe.. yeah, probably. He even uses a giant lance and his strongest move is called, ahem, maximum penetration. Who can resist a manly scream like that. ;)

Overall it felt like there were more character sub-stories (some selective merchants) and more background stories to be uncovered (if one wished to pursue them).

Sound 5.5/5
AT music has always been known to be nothing less than amazing. I was already well familiarized to the hymns prior to the game and playing the game put the tracks into context. I fell in love with the distinct music style of the vocal tracks just the same as how I did for the first one. Always loved the duets and multiple singer tracks and without a doubt, my most favourite track is featured in the third reyvateil's ending as a duet with Croix.

Yusa Kouji makes such a cool and delicious Croix and out of character Suwabe Junichi as Chester in the optional Cosmosphere was the icing on the cake for this game's Japanese voice track. I avoided the English language track as usual and it's a good thing I did as I heard it's quite distracting and embarrassing to play when the girl shouting for you to insert the thing into them, telling you its overflowing from the inside, and that they demand for more. Ahem.

Graphics 3/5
Average graphics although there's definitely improvement from AT1. Areas have more dimension as the perspective adjusts and move with your character now. Your pixel character, however, continues to be its pixel self. The still portraits and full background images return to provide that dating sim feel but the cutscene animations seemed to have dropped in quality.

Gameplay 3.5/5
The gameplay probably received the biggest upgrade from the first. The battle system has evolved and every action you take now counts for something towards your reyvateil's performance. You now also get up to two beautiful ladies to protect during battle - 2x more work but 2x more powerful. Battles are divided into turn phases (attack and defense) and your offensive turn is to be used as efficiently as possible as you're under a timer. Songs now have branches and evolve depending on your battle action and with the right circumstances, you can synchronize your reyvateils for a powerful attack, call on a satellite for help, or just evolve the song to its most powerful level.

Other nifty [mostly optional] gameplay features include the Cosmosphere (from AT1 - diving into the minds of the ladies to uncover deep dark secrets), bathing events (no you don't get to bath with them but you can watch!), crafting (the ridiculous inventions return) and finding infected reyvateils (which you then recruit to do your bidding).

Overall 4/5
As a second timer into the Ar Tonelico series, I knew what to expect and it definitely lived up to its name. The typos and bugs aside (it won't let me fight Raki :( ), the obvious sexual innuendos are so amusing and that itself just continues to entertain. Having a bit more than just a bit of reference from the first game ([spoiler]The third reyvateil[/spoiler]), made this game all the more interesting as well.


Creepy bug I felt like snapshotting.
Looking forward to diving into AT3 and whatever else they have planned for the world of Ar Tonelico!

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is first

I'm going to see if I can remember the game from a year ago.

Story 3.5/5
World War III destroys the living conditions on Earth, leaving the survivors to find a new planet to live on by traversing into outer space. A new organization is created dedicating itself to space explorations and research. As part of the space fleet, Eeedji-kun and Reimi venture into space on their first mission only to be disrupted by an unexpected meteor which forces them to emergency warp out from their travel course. They crash land on a monster-infested planet and create a new team to continue on the main mission while the old team stays behind to figure out what exactly happened. They find and destroy planets, combat diseases, and answer a number of questions from the Star Ocean series.

As the prequel, things surprisingly made sense. There were some recurring themes that linked with the other stories. I still question the last boss though. The biggest wtf was definitely [spoiler] the space dragon!! [/spoiler]

Characters 3/5
Everyone's so lawl about this. This game's the greatest generic stereotype library: we've got the happy-go-lucky protagonist who turns emo at some point, the cute childhood friend who gets jealous easily, the orderly one, the loli, the father figure, the megane airhead/kultz, the cat fetish, the boobs, and the goth. They covered most of their bases.

Personality-wise, I don't think there's a character I particularly loved (although I suppose Reimi scores pretty high) but I can definitely tell you my most hated character was Meracle. Eleyna, who was just a side character, might've been even more interesting than the main cast. Playability-wise, I enjoyed using Edge, Reimi, and Lymle.

Oh and wtf happened to Welch? Welch in her early days or not, she's no pink-haired ditz. Super disappointment. :(

Sound 3/5
More yays for the international version. Fortunately I avoided the English voices completely so my game was graced by the voices of Kishio Daisuke (Edge), Sawashiro Miyuki (Lymle) and Saiga Mitsuki's (Faize). The unfortunate part is that their voice actors couldn't make up for their in-game counterparts.

Sakuraba Motoi's music style really shone through in the battle tracks. Can't say much for the other stuff though.

Graphics 4/5
Pretty decent looking game with blinding lightning effects. The glassy doll eyes are really creepy at first. Like Magna Carta 2 but they actually stare straight at you as opposed to looking away.

PS3 wins with 2D character profiles.

Gameplay 4.5/5
4 brings back all the classic gameplay features from the other games - crafting, real-time battles, private actions - and adds blindsiding (going behind the enemy), battle bonuses (wait were there bonuses in 3?), and a special attack gauge (Rush Mode - a la Tales' Hi-Ougi). Rush mode is one of the more exciting parts of the gameplay since it can be super cheap if used correctly.

Swapping characters mid-battle is a great added feature. If you're so dying to the point that it's hopeless during the ass-pain that is the second optional dungeon, the Wandering Dungeon, then this is the function to use to your advantage stat.

Overall 4/5
Speaking of the Wandering Dungeon, gee-zeus it's so tedious so no I didn't kill the hardest boss in the game although the Seven Star Dungeon was deliciously fun and entertaining.

With a passable story, not so desirable characters but excellent gameplay, the game is still worth many, many hours of gaming dedication. Just remember this game is Japanese so playing with Japanese voice overs will help those strangely awkward moments.

Play! A Video Game Symphony: In Vancouver

The other lesser known video game concert. After finally experiencing it firsthand, I think I can see why.

I arrived downtown about an hour before the start of the show and wandered about the stores on Granville while waiting for the rest of the people. On our way into the Orpheum, we were (illegally) handed flyers advertising VGL's return next year (again??). I must say, it's a pretty dirty but smart strategy though...

It started not too long after we got warmed up to our seats. 8pm rolled around and the conductor, Andy Brick, came out to play the first piece prior to his intro shpeel. PLAY! Fanfare was a piece specially composed by Uematsu for their concert, which sadly wasn't that amazing... but if anything, it definitely does make their event the more special and different from the others.

Of course, a video game concert isn't complete without a Mario medley which was the first video game to start. Good momentum yes? Bam! Came the WTF: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Really? REALLY? Award for best video game musical score or not, I don't think it's quite the right series to bring with you. I can understand that you want to dedicate a track to the composer in the audience, but really, how many of us have played the DS game? Even as HP fans, I'm not here to listen to HP thank you very much. Besides, there's plenty of other better known games to choose from his resume? Rant aside, I won't deny that it is a good piece by itself.

Back on track was Silent Hill, Theme of Laura was awesome with an orchestra and the old man ripping it on the guitar. Followed was Civ 5! I haven't even played it yet but it sounded good. The piece was a mashup of a variety of tracks and one part was clearly the theme for East Asia as the CG lady on the screen was some sort of Japanese/Chinese. The composers were also in the audience.

Hello, Kingdom Hearts! Interestingly enough, they actually had Kingdom Hearts CG playing on the screen (versus VGL only had Disney clips). I personally loved their rendition with both Hikari and Passion. Following with the awesome was an excellent arrange of Legend of Zelda.

The build up was interrupted by an intermission and the 2nd half started with, what... Sim City 4?! Really? REALLY? I don't mind Sim City at all but choose something just a tad more popular. Just saying you'd probably get more reaction from the audience that way.

The concert continues with Guild Wars. Seriously, enough music for the attending composers and more for the audience you're supposed to be catering to. I won't deny that it was still enjoyable for what it was.

The highlight of the concert was supposed to be the Chrono Cross/Trigger arrange BUT being the picky fangirl that I am, they didn't perform up to my expectations. The solo flute player and the solo first violinist failed to be on beat and not loud enough, respectively (for Time's Scar). Rantrantrantrant, but hey, I loved the Chrono Trigger ending theme!

And then we had Halo. This version didn't sound as epic as VGLs. The choir definitely wasn't loud enough. The next nice surprise was Sonic the Hedgehog. I remember the Green Hill Zone and it was played wonderfully!

Play!'s version of Castlevania was pretty mellow and definitely gave off the orchestrated symphony feel compared to VGL's all-out rock (which yeah, isn't very orchestraded now is it?).

Finally, to finish off, there was World of Warcraft. I'd probably be all over this piece if I were a WoWer. But I'm not so I wasn't.

Surprise, surprise there was an encore. And guess what it was? Fucking One Winged Angel. Been to three video game concerts ever, all with the same encore.

So in retrospect, I had a lot of complaints. Overall it was decent but the flaws were obvious. I hate to have to compare it with VGL since Play! clearly presents music completely differently than VGL does but I would definitely still question the choice of some tracks (mainly HP and Sim City really). Perhaps because VGL was able to squeeze that many more songs into their program (medleys featuring multiple series etc), it felt a lot more satisfying.

Seeing that this was a more traditional orchestrated concert, it was hard to cheer and make noises like Andy Brick said we could've; it was all the more awkward, really.

The videos that played on the screen wasn't as synced to the music as one would've wanted them to be. The visuals that were shown also got duplicated quite a bit in the same score and it didn't seem as well edited. It also didn't help that I sat beside a fangirl who was very vocal with her experience with the games featured. I've played this, I've played that. I remember this, I remember that. Good for you girl. It was also a bit funny that she wore a VGL t-shirt. It's like going to a True Blood meetup with a Twilight fan shirt on. Yeah.

I definitely give props for providing a thorough tribute to each game as multiple tracks were incorporated into one piece instead of just the theme songs. Seeing their score collection though, I would've wanted to hear Lost Odyssey, Actraiser, Shadow of the Colossus, Shenmue or Stella Deus... just the games that were a bit out of the norm. I did have high hopes on the selection, mainly something aside from the mainstream market but alas, I was disappointed. Although they did try with uhh... Harry Potter? I guess. :| I would've definitely liked to see them differentiate themselves from VGL, perhaps, with the niche market or lesser known but just as popular games route.

My friend brought up a good suggestion - Katamari Damacy. Imagine that with choir and orchestra. Just imagine... wow.

All 'n all, good try but they definitely need to differentiate themselves better from VGL rather than being the other "not so good as VGL" concert. They clearly want to offer a different experience but they don't seem to be doing it right somehow. They have potential and they should totally try and find some sort of exploit they can use to their advantage. If not, they'll always be seen as the second rate concert second to VGL forever.

Mass Effect: The Second

Overdue half a year.


Aloha, beaver teeth!
STORY 4.5/5
The "continuation" of ME1... The Normandy gets attacked by an unknown ship on the way to finish off the geth leftovers. The crew are forced to evacuate but Shepard gets blown out of the ship and falls into a nearby atmosphere. Supposedly dead, Shepard wakes up back in one piece in a Cerberus lab under attack two years later and is told to join them in facing a new threat. You gather a fresh group of teammates, old and new, and get a new ship. Although this time around, ME2's ending prepares the setting for ME3.

The story this time around was definitely more character development driven as all the members of your crew had some significance in the main save-the-universe storyline.

CHARACTERS 4.5/5
Where to start? I think I liked everyone. It felt like the characters were definitely more alive in their fluid movements, facial expressions and just had more personality in general.

Miranda's front two beaver teeth drove me up the wall though (much like Sookie's front two teeth gap).. until I eventually got used to it. Jacob was cool, but I somehow kept unintentionally triggering the flirt dialogue lines. Grunt, the Wrex replacement, was cute but not as cool as Wrex. Loved Thane's story. Was indifferent with Jack but apparently she's a popular choice for romance. Samara - Justicars are cool. Mordin! They made him so awesomely hilarious. I would've totally tried to date him if the choice was there. ;)

[Partial spoiler?] Tali'Zorah returns. Meh. :b As for romance I was actually able to choose Garrus this time! The whole romancing thing with him was a bit of a disappointment, but hey, he's not exactly human so I let it slide. My wish from ME1 came true though. :D As for Alenko, WELL, I'm glad we broke up![/spoiler]

SOUND 4/5
The delicious epic music and voice acting has lived on in ME2.

GRAPHICS 4/5
Great improvements since the first game. I'm sure that I couldn't stop staring at Thane whenever I had a conversation with him. The details on his FACE were stare-worthy. The loading of textures and details were not noticeable like ME1 where objects would load by layers.

GAMEPLAY 4/5
There's no more weapon swapping, just only between the different types. e.g. sniper rife or bazooka. Ammo is no longer unlimited. The Mako's been changed into a planet probing mini game and it's even more time consuming than before. I must admit, I grinned when I probed Uranus though.

The morality feature had been revamped into a simple Paragon/Renegade system which is opened up by dialog/actions you take throughout the game. Certain Paragon/Renegade actions became available during dialog/cut scenes to alter the story a bit. I felt less worried picking a few Renegade choices here and there this time around. (ahem, beating a guy three times to get him to talk)

Traveling the universe now requires gas. SERIOUSLY. Thanks for reminding us that gas is indeed expensive, ME2. I was always poor because of fuel costs.

OVERALL 4.5/5
It was neat how my PC Dragon Age bonus armor for Mass Effect 2 was able to transfer over but it sucked how my helmet was always on. I didn't really get to see my actual face much until I finally gave up on wearing my awesome blood armor. :(

Having played the first one, ME2 definitely stood out with returning characters and the development of a universe I'm already well aware of. Even the little Cerberus news update that changes every day was a nice touch to the game. If you login every day, some stories actually related which was neat. :D

Again just like the first, you get to decide the fate of something universe changing at the end... which will be transferred elegantly into the 3rd game! More cameos, returning characters and then a bunch of new ones all over again! I'm ready for some more ass whoopin'!

{My Life} {Where is it?}

Okay so Final Fantasy XIV was released last week.

My life is so screwed.


Cute fluffy [dangerous] things!
Let's put my screwed life aside for a moment and talk about FFXIV.

So CE version retail pre-release (before the 'official' release tomorrow) is finally upon us. The pressure's been on the XIV team for years now so I'm not surprised this got pushed out so quickly with yet so many flaws, bugs, incompletenesses... So yes, FFXIV is incomplete but so was FFXI back in the day. The main difference is that XIV's system/world is so much more complicated thus the amount of negativity and things to complain about are bigger than that of XI by ten fold. Everyone just needs to rant about it (so do I). We'll still keep playing though, no worries there. We just gotta get it out of our system.

But you'd think that they learnt something from FFXI being in service for 8(?) years now. NOPE. WHY IS THAT? Stop trying to make it a completely different game by removing everything that was good! Not saying they should make it the same... but the fact that we see no solution or the feature is missing completely, doesn't make things any better.


Hello, greetings.. tis I. I am actually female this time. For serious.
Here's a list of rants I can think of right now (besides the obvious bugs and glitches)... with bonus profanity, caps, and anger:

• FIX THE CHAT - Give back our hotkeys. Make our lives easier please.
• MENUS - This is effing menu hell. I don't use a controller so STOP IT.
• LAG - Inevitable... but fix it somehow! There's more people coming so why aren't you prepared??
• TARGETING - what is this shit? THERE IS NO REAL TARGETING SYSTEM.
• TARGETING 2 - The targeting keys for mobs and parties system are absent. WHY. Make some soon please.
• CHAT LOG - the visible area is too small and with all this spam it's useless since I can't scroll up easily. where's the easily accessible full chat log reader?
• CHAT CHARACTER LIMIT PER LINE - what is this limit crap? this isn't fucking twitter.
• AH please or at least a retainer bazaar catalog system - none of this stand around in Batallia Downs but 10 floors of it bullshit.
• SEARCH - I swear I'm not a stalker but I would at least like to know where my friends are so I don't have to ask them every time. Also for party forming.
• DEGRADING ARMOUR - Fuck. Make it easier for us to find out which piece needs fixing at least.
• DELIVERY BOX - should be essential.

Of course not everything is bad but negatives always outweigh the positives huh. Positives!

• Multi linkshell conversations (although not even fully functional yet :b)
• We can see the accessories we wear now yay!
• Retainers are cool; they're like slaves. My slave's spankin' gorgeous.
• Instant job change transformation is wunderful~
• There's some voice acting. Not too-too bad.
• Crafting is actually kinda fun
• Guildleves are enjoyable, reoccurring quests that are party-able.. although the cooldown timer is still too long.
• Traveling from crystal to crystal to node is quick.
• Job trait/ability/action sharing across jobs is awesome.
• No penalty when you die?

The strange thing is that I've been playing since closed alpha and it feels the same... just more crowded. Although I didn't play it much back then, I feel more comfortable learning things now than before.

They must be really behind.

Oh well. Now that it's released, they have all the time in the world... until we get fed up and leave.

I will finish this post with a bug.

INVISIBLE SYNTHESIS!

Penny Arcade Expo 2010 Report: Part 2

PAX10 [Day 2]: Saturday - Shooting and Breaking Stuff
Joined the queue line around 9:30 which was already too late. My first stop was attempting at playing Portal 2, but by the time I got there, the line already wrapped around the booth one and a half times. Next door's line for Brink, however, was BEAUTIFUL AND SHORT.

• Brink - After a year and we only get a playable demo... not that I'm complaining. You got to play in a team of eight (but there was only 4 real people per team for the demo), each player picked one of the four jobs (the usual: infiltrator, engineer, medic, sniper.. whatever the actual names were) and you are given a mission (either offense or defense, in the multiplayer mode we were playing). I'm proud to say that I scored the most points out of the eight as a real human player, only to be beaten by the 4 NPCs of the opposing team. ETA Spring 2010.
• Infamous 2 - Played the game for my brother as he wanted the t-shirt. The guy was nice enough to give me a small too. ;>
• End of Nations - Tried it just because it was right beside Rift. I didn't really get it.
• Halo Reach - Never played a Halo before so I thought I'd check it out. Too late into the franchise to understand the hype. :|
• Dead Rising 2 - The shortest yet longest waiting line EVER. Funny thing was, all the three girls who were part of the same queue ended up choosing the three PS3s, me included. Kill over 200 zombies in ~15 minutes, get a bobble head = GET. (Killed around 280)
• Epic Mickey - Removing and/or putting back objects/structures to solve puzzles. Mickey's such a troublemaker. :|

Went to Weekend Confirmed (Hi! It's you again, Shane!), Totally Rad Show (disappointed.), and the Bonus Round where the live video recording was quite interesting and complicated. Insomniac's Behind the Scenes with their PS3 game was pretty neat though I didn't expect Ratchet and Clank at all.

First/Last meal of the day followed at Benihana for teppanyaki where we had a table of 13 people. Conversation was a bit difficult but even that size of a dinner's still pretty fun. We had a real(?) Japanese chef do the food dancing which was nicer than the not-so Japanese ones that did the other tables. Felt more authentic at least!


After satisfying the tummy, we visited the Console Freeplay for some SSBM but found out that they didn't have any GameCubes. :| We settled for the next best thing - Super Smash Brothers, the first. It was weird playing with a N64 controller again and trying to remember that all the yellow buttons did the same damn thing!

PAX10 [Day 3]: Sunday - The Last But Not Least Bit
Again, 9:30. Wasn't going to bother trying for Portal 2.

• Killzone 3 - I hovered around 3rd place... got shot down plenty by giant machines.
• Tera - Since the podcasters mentioned it, I thought I'd give it a try. Expected no less from the Koreans as the graphics were nothing but beautiful. The whole fighting direction and having to swing your camera around 360 with the mouse was rather frustrating though.
• Eve Online - Didn't really play it, but I got the lowdown on the game just so I have an idea of what it's all about.
• FireFall - Wasn't exactly playable but they did a live demo. While they were demoing, I couldn't help but listen in on the Dragon Age II talk that was happening next door. Side note: Hawke doesn't seem like a very fantasy last name.
• FFXIV - Yeaaaaaaaah, I wanted the FFXIV-branded USB stick. Fuck the girl who took 15 minutes to create her character. It's even more frustrating knowing they let her take her time and then gave her additional time on top of it just to play some of the story. Ended up not getting the USB stick as they ran out moments before. My time would've been better spent at the Gearbox panel or something.. which I should've gone to.

After that frustration, I settled down at the PC Freeplay to pass the time before ToFu decided to leave the BYOC room... and PAX for good.

The chalk artist was here again this year and drew this:


We had Dick's for an early dinner (well, first and last meal of the day) and chilled at Rift's place for the rest of the evening. Tried to force him to finish Ar Tonelico 2 - no good. We left his place around 10 for late night cheap bowling with PZAG at the Garage. So. Beer and bowling. It was 4v3, winner by team average and us 4 literally fell into the gutter the longer we played. By the end of three rounds and three pitchers, it was butt-ugly.

The drive back was me trying to sleep off the headache. Drunk shopping at Walmart was mightily strange too...

A look at some of my hard work:


I would've tried at the League of Legends tourny if it didn't take up 5 hours of the day. There was also the Tetris DS tourny but it was during Giant Bombcast. :( Somehow the schedule felt a lot more busier this year, not to mention the lines were longer, thus taking up more time. They also had us work for our swag by either playing the game (usually the case) or doing a survey. The untouchables were definitely Duke Nukem Forever, Portal 2, and Dragon Age II. Even Rock Band and Dance Central had to use a ticketing system.

So this year the venue "expanded" by extending the event to other buildings and the exhibitor's hall was able to take up a whole floor. Unfortunately, due to the amount of people at a sold out event though, things only got worse (crowd control! wait times! not enough swag to go around!). Not exactly sure how that would be remedied for the next year. Even so, I wasn't at all disappointed at PAX. It /does/ feel a lot more fancier with the new main theatre and extra large helping of big companies and games... I hope they're able to maintain this ratio of fans/community vs commercialism.

Anyway, final thoughts:

• Missed: King-Fu LIVE
• Forgot: Front Mission Evolved, Deathspank
• Favourite: Brink
• Would've been nice: Portal 2
• Wondered about: Medal of Honor, Sonic Colors
• Missing: EFFING DIABLO III. (BLIZZCON ANNOUNCEMENTS BETTER BE GOOD.)
• Still around?: Fallen Earth
• Tempted: MTGO
• Favourite Swag: Pens Garnier Shampoo Sample Torchlight 2 t-shirt
• Where art thou?: Bamco

Penny Arcade Expo 2010 Report: Part 1

I've returned... PAX flu free!

Pre-PAX: Thursday - The Journey Across the Border
Made my way across the border with PZAG right after work. Delays included taking our time, plenty of road construction, and a bit of border waiting... but besides those, it was pretty smooth sailing. I photoraped Paul, for the record.

Got to Jerry's place around 10pm, cooked and ate delicious Costco steak (yeah just steak) and drank Session. My real rock beat everyone's scissors and papers.


For the rest of the night, we watched Gamer (wut) and visited Jerry's workplace (yes, in the middle of the night) where all the floors were integers (Ground = -1, Basement = -2).

PAX10 [Day 1]: Friday - The Wanderer
Had Voula's Offshore Cafe for breakfast. Had us waiting for a good 45mins but it was DELICIOUS.


Due to the long breakfast wait, we ended up getting to the convention at 11pm. :|

Regardless, there was still a long day ahead of us!

• The Duke Nukem Forever line was loooooooong. Much like for Portal 2. Both were out of the question.
• Rift: Planes of Telara - Geez, played this game for well over an hour (and a half?)... not that it was that special either. It was an MMO that felt very WAR and made leveling up and logging out really dramatic. Did about the first dozen or so quests before realizing that too much time was spent on this one game. Managed to break the game a few times too.
• Torchlight 2 - Ended up breaking this game once too. I demoed the Railman and strayed off the main path to some cave. Found a boss and destroyed it with my spam of jump-smashes. The developer guy remembered me for it when I went back the next day to nab myself a t-shirt. :D
• Civ 5 - In 3D! Because it's a stupid idea. It was headachy so it didn't last very long.
• Bangai-O - It was cool so I thought I'd mention it. It's hard. :|
• Donkey Kong Wii - Oh, Wii. Co-op was neat but the waggling was not.
• Super Scribblenauts - Never actually played the first one so why now?... They had a game where you had to find other PAXers with the same matching badge as you to win stuff. Never actually managed to even find one. If you somehow found 10 people, then all 10 people would win a DSi. At least I got the cool ninja badge as a souviner.

• Plants vs Zombies - They had a special room on the panels floor for tattoos and face painting. Walk away with a pylon on your head and you had a chance to win an iPad. Yep, lots of pylon heads. The things people would do to get stuff. :3
• UT3 - Didn't exactly "demo" this game but I joined in on a spur of the moment tourny. For some reason most of the guys that were playing weren't that good. I ended up being in the top 3 but didn't win anything. A friend played TF2 and won something for being on the winning team. Playing FFA is obviously not beneficial.

• Square-Enix panel - First half was dedicated to FFXIV where they took us through Gridania. The NPC lady had RED LEG ARMOUR. Seriously, what? Didn't help that the Lalafell NPC's voice was painfully annoying. I must say though, the brigade of people at the end of the scene looked cool... especially the cute leader *wink*. The second half was Deux Ex which actually looked pretty impressive. It glitched out pretty badly at one point but the battle demo was cool enough to make up for it.

Played half a round of Settlers before heading to Giant Bombcast Live. The surprise guest panel was awesome. :3 Food followed after at Palomino where we had fries and 6 pizzas including the Giant Bombcast mentioned Incredible Pepperoni Pizza.

[insert incredible pepperoni pizza that wasn't as incredible as it says it is]

TBC... in Part 2

Heat Interference

In came August, in came a sudden mix of thundershowers, meteor showers and heatwaves. Our city never ceases to amaze us and the past few weeks have just been a good handful amazement.

I managed to go to the final performance (of the four) for the Celebration of Lights fireworks night which was done by some Canadian group doing a tribute to China (why China?). It was a bit strange how they decided to move the event up a week earlier than usual this year so I only managed to go to the last Saturday one. Well, Saturday was a scorching beach day and I got there a bit after noon and met up with Sty and Tofu. Napped, played iPad touch tetris (fffffffffffffffuu - I got to level 13 at least), ate chips, then it rained and scared some people away. Yay for beach umbrellas. Saboo and Steph followed to join us later that night. The performance itself wasn't all that great as it was too stereotypically Chinesey. Finished off the night with the deliciousness of facecicles.

The following weekend was the weekend of weddings. Friday the 6th was my cousin Fan Mei's wedding. They hired a horrendous wedding singer duo that wouldn't stop their loud singing in bad Engrish. We all wanted to die. At least the dessert was pretty:


The day after, Saturday, was Vee+Chris' long awaited day. For some reason, having Lisa with me made me late for every occasion. She must be bad luck as we were late for both the ceremony and reception. Unfortunately it also decided to rain that day, which made communing that much more frustrating. Jess was there as an additional photographer and it was actually pretty neat to see her again since grad. We totally danced it out at the reception dance floor. :3 It was also interesting to experience my first buffet-style reception. The salad tricked me into filling my plate before getting to the meat. D:! Speaking of weddings though, I don't think I mentioned my cousin Jacky's wedding that happened in July as well. I've only had to go to three this year but my parents have gone to double what I have. Sigh, tis the summer of weddings~

So! As summer's winding down, my inner guilt had forced me to look a -little- harder for work. I did some more searching the following weekend, tried at a few postings and lo and behold, I got a call on the Monday for an interview Wednesday. The next thing you know, I was hired on the spot and I began work that upcoming Friday. Hello! I'm now a jack-of-all-trades web administrator! I'll get into that a bit more another day. Thank goodness for office a/c though.

Then... Anime Evolution happened on the following weekend. I coughed out a day's worth of pass money which I completely regret doing but for the sake of just meeting friends, it's worth it *sucks it up*. Thanks to LightningSabre, I got a pleasant a/c'd ride to UBC where we both began dying upon leaving the vehicle. Bumped into Nina+bf on my way to reg, bumped into Jenny on my way to somewhere-I-forget and joined her to the cosplay cafe. The lineup for it was insane so we just took a peek and then bumped into Tofu and his gang. We headed to the cosplay contest where there were some really questionable performances. It wasn't long before we ditched the place and wandered the artist alley.. er villa. I'm really disappointed at their "artist villa" layout as the artists upstairs obviously got the short end of the stick. I bumped into Nina again upstairs as she finished setting up her table. After wandering around aimlessly a bit more, we headed to the Little Tea House downstairs for some cold drinks before making our way to the Final Fantasy photoshoot. I left Jenny to her photo-taking frenzy as I headed inside to check out the Niconico panel. Stepped in, sat down for a minute, stepped out. It was DISGUSTING IN THERE. With the lack of a/c and the amount of people, it was unbearable. It didn't help that they were playing Japanese Ronarudo remixes. As I waited outside, I bumped into the Chen+Ran duo who were waiting around for the Touhou panel. I watched Chen get into her fake nails while the Niconico panel behind us started to do a live streaming feed. We had people sleeping on the sides, playing their psp, or just talking and didn't care for what was being streamed. Then there were the niconico keeners at the front doing their singing and dancing as they knew the lyrics to the medley and catchy meme'd-the-hell-out-of tracks.

Touhou panel was next. The room got even more packed, thus even more disgustingly hot and humid. The presentation was the same as Sakuracon (and probably last year's AE too). People started trickling out pretty fast when they noticed the presentation was just going to be a snore-fest. I'm glad I brought a fan or I would've died in there. There wasn't anything else good to do so I waited around and left soon after the photoshoot.

Me and LS followed to check out the Starcraft 2 tourny but spectator line was undesirably long so we went next door to the console gaming room instead to pass the time. We poked at Katamari and found that 2 player mode isn't available initially, Split/Second and rerealized that racing games only last so long, Call of Duty and just shot a lot and died a lot. After what we thought was enough time wasted, we went back to the tourny room and watched some matches. Sty and Steph soon showed up and joined us on the watching before it was -finally- Tofu's turn. We watched him get his butt kicked :( then we followed to figure out where to eat :b and finalized on 24hr pho. Called it a night after a stomach full of food.

This dreadful heatwave rendered my PC useless the last few days and scared me into thinking that my hdd might actually be dying. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be the case after I turned it back on when the weather started cooling down. Though I did end up corrupting some sectors on the hdd and that messed up the settings of some programs I had open at the time when my computer began hanging under the heatwave weather.

Regardless, I have an external on the way anyway.

Now that I have a job... I can think about that backlog of things I need to get/do.