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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

PEE ESS FREE

So hay, I'm playing teh PS3 now. Not extensively, mind you.

On the weekend my bro was all like "WE NEED AN HDMI CABLE, LIKE, NOW - LET'S GO!" and that's how it all started. And whoooaa... compared to what we've been staring at on our 50 inch (normal TV), everything's so crystal clear and beautiful now *__*... We've been mad downloading demos and trailers over wireless (we'll need to setup a wired connection soon). I've been playing Overlord and Eden, though I'm still getting the hang of Eden's spinny and gravity logic. I also convinced my brother to buy Overlord and Echochrome. He's been playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma most of the time, as I watch him be a retarded ninja and do not-so-cool ninja moves ;b

But yeeeah everything's awesome on PS3 so far. Just needs more RPGs and Home.

380 Damage

Went to Holt Renfew today and got my mom her birthday+Christmas present. At least I split the bill with my bro but it was still mighty painful lol. Ooh but I did see a bag with the latest white/grey checker style [the same one my mom got] in a bigger size that i liked *cough1060cough*.

Huumm.. did some slacking this weekend. There's still a day and a half(-ish) left of the long weekend and I've got quite a bit to do (the school stuff :T)... so I'm not so sure how it'll work out. Working on a group project all day tomorrow, followed by a family dinner at night. Hmm, crap. I guess that's a sign for me to get working.

PS3 released two days ago in Japan... Famitsu and ITMedia have nothing but PS3 articles... stuff about over 1k people lining up overnight for it, hardware already getting dismantled and examined, release events... no actual reviews yet I don't think.. Not that I've been actually trying to look for them though. I encountered a funny poll though...

プレイステーション 3、買えた？
買えた 8%
買えなかった 10%
買わなかった 67%
あ！　忘れてた…… 13%

Heh, I wonder why. xb