Christmas is here!

Well, almost. It's a week before Christmas, but I don't have the same excited feelings I once had about Christmas. My memories of Christmas past haven't all been great, but they make me appreciate the ones I have every year. Every year, I'd be excited to go to a cousin's house, or a relatives, or family friends and be able to be around so many people close to me. It doesn't seem like we're even doing anything this year, so I'm not as excited about Christmas this year. I am; however, happy in my own way. My sister's home and I get to spend so much time with my immediate family.

Anyways, I've been continuing work for the game projects I've been assigned to doing music for and the latest track I did for Camera Obscura seems to be really liked by the team, a lot. This scares me, because it was a track for the 2nd last area of the game. I still have one more track to do left, and it's for the last area! What am I going to do to top what I did before? Though I can't preview the song or anything yet, I can say that's it's a cross between a Waltz, a baroque period invention, a romantic period melody and play style, and modern electronic music. Yup, I'm strange like that, but it sounded right in my head and turned out great as a result albeit the midi-sounding instruments. I've worked a little on the Street Fighter Mix, but I still have some left mainly because I don't have a structure for the last 3-4 character themes to work with. This means I'll have to do it all by scratch...ugh. But I definitely want to finish before the end of this year. The mix has rendered me unproductive in terms of quantity, and the quality doesn't really make up for it.

I need to improve my blog, create my portfolio site, and start creating those indie games of mine, but I don't think I'll be able to do it before the end of the year. It seems like my New Year's resolution for 2011 has mostly failed aside from completing games which I've been doing very well at, haha. What I haven't done after completing the games is doing the write-ups, which was the whole point of recording the games I've played. I'm planning to focus my last 2 weeks of 2011 to improving my blog and doing those write-ups.

So, continuing from the last post I made, I've bought quite a bit of games. After those purchases, I promised myself I wouldn't buy anymore until I've completed at least half of what I've gotten so far. Well I failed, haha. I went to the newly re-established Roseville Galleria mall this past weekend just to check out what changed and just to go out for a bit of fresh air since I'm always home working. I dropped by GameStop and went through the games and Hyperdimensional Neptunia was there as a new copy for $30!

I'm not crazy about getting the game, but I've been keeping an eye on it throughout the year as the general price online was $70-$90. It's an RPG that makes a lot of references, parodies, and jokes about the game industry. I mean, the world that it's set in is called "Gamindustri". I couldn't help it and bought it, and I'm not sure if it's worth it yet since I haven't played it. I checked up online again and there's stores selling it for $60, but there's another store selling it for $180. Why is it so rare/expensive? When I bought it at GameStop, it was the last copy! Weird. I also bought a used copy of Madworld for the Wii (finally) as it was only $7 and the condition of the disk was pretty good for a used game. I played the first mission last night and "snap" the game is ridiculous. The whole game is black and white so the red blood is VERY noticeable. It's very violent for sure, but I didn't expect the F-bomb being dropped every 5 seconds in the game. For $7, I guess it's a good game to play if you want to release some RAGE!!! Hahaha.

Steam Winter Sales started today, oh dear...That means buying more games, haha. The site was so imploded today that it couldn't even start. The servers are getting raped by millions of patrons buying and downloading games right now. There's also a drawing for an epic giveaway at the end of the event where the grand prize winner wins...ALL GAMES ON STEAM! That's too nuts, not even I'd want that. Still, the objective event thing is back for the winter sales which means I'll be playing Steam games for the next 2 weeks. I beat Crysis 2 last night on PS3 and I have so many games on it that I'm not sure what to play next, but I guess I'll switch around and play a bit each night before fulfilling those objectives on steam each night. I may not be looking forward to Christmas this year, but I look forward to playing games every night for the next two weeks.

Have a Merry Christmas Everyone! And a Happy New Year.

Holidays are starting

It's been a pretty busy month as I completed 2 tracks for the 2 projects I'm working on (kinda slow for me to be honest). I was hoping to complete more, but I had some troubles with composing one of them. I'm about to work on the next track as Christmas season approaches. Once it's the middle of December, I won't be able to work as diligently again like I did this past week for Thanksgiving as a friend is visiting from his training for the Army. He'll be deploying spring next year and so I'd probably make the most of my time with him this December as he won't have any internet connection throughout his duration overseas. I still haven't finished my Street Fighter mix which makes me sad. It has made me seem very unproductive as I haven't completed much in the past few months other than the two tracks. What makes me even more sad is that I haven't been drawing for the past half year. I'm planning on getting a new tablet and work more on digital drawings, but I bought a lot of stuff this past month because of sales, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday deals.

I'm very surprised that I actually got a lot of (console) games, and a lot of them being new titles at full price (with some deals of course). One of them being Skyrim, which I initially didn't have much interest in until I started playing Oblivion and Morrowind this past summer.


Are any of you looking for games to buy? I'll list the ones I've gotten and leave a short comment on each one and let you know which ones I recommend (I'll put a * for the ones I highly recommend).

-Brink (PS3): Please don't get this. I'm glad I only paid $10 for this one. It wasn't 100% bad, but multiplayer is dead. 0 people playing online.

-Bayonetta (PS3): This game seriously got me back into playing Action games (as I played God of War 1 & 2 right before it. GoW was fun, but it didn't impress me). So now I'm playing Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry 4 again. Bayonetta is a lot of fun.

-Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PS3): I haven't played much of it, but it doesn't feel like Deus Ex 1. So far, the game has a nice balance in stealth, action, and RPG.

-Battlefield 3 (PS3): I'm having mixed feelings about campaign mode, but multiplayer is really fun (if not frustrating). I'm going to be playing this throughout the year.

-*The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3): If you like RPGs or knows someone that does, GET THIS GAME! It's not (too much of) an exaggeration when you keep hearing the phrase "Game of the Year" from someone who's playing it. It's much easier to understand compared to the last two iterations of TES series yet still retains the open world aspect that makes it fun to explore and find one's own entertainment in the world of Tamriel. The game is so fun and relaxing to play, it'll be another game I play throughout the year.

-*Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3): I felt hesitant about getting MW3 due to the conflict Infinity Ward and Activision had with each other and the leave of many great developers from Infinity Ward; however, the game turned out to be really fun. The co-op is a lot deeper and meaningful to play for long durations and online multiplayer has an extensive leveling system that rewards players to doing well and getting better. I'm still not certain about the campaign yet since I haven't gotten as far, but it's sadly already playing better than Battlefield 3 (I had a lot of faith in BF3 because Medal of Honor and Battlefield: Bad Company 2's campaign was so fun). It was worth the full price I paid, gonna be playing throughout the year.

-Vanquish (PS3): Got it in the mail yesterday, but have tried the demo already and know it's a good single-player Action game. This one's good for those who like Action Shooters.

-Way of the Samurai 3 (PS3): FINALLY I get one of the games in the series, and I gotta say it was hard to stomach when I tried it last night. The game is very obscure and has its own unique entertainment value and is definitely not for everyone. I kind of wish I could get it for $20 instead of $27

-White Knight Chronicles 2 (comes with WKC 1 as well) (PS3): I haven't received it yet, but I'm ready for a straight-forward Action-RPG I'll get to enjoy throughout the year (hopefully people still play online).

-Dark Souls (PS3): I loved Demon's Souls, and I'm hoping Dark Souls will give me the same entertainment value. I'm still waiting for it to come in the mail.

-Goldeneye 007 (Wii): I mainly got it for the single-player as I suspect no one plays online anymore. I miss playing the Wii.

-Orcs Must Die! (PC): GRAH, I must try this out today! It's an Action Tower Defense game, much like Dungeon Defenders, but is sadly single-player.

-Test Drive Unlimited 2 (PC): I'm surprised I bought a racing game, but it's not racing in the strictest sense. Hopefully it's a semi-relaxing game?

-Sam & Max Complete Pack (PC): Originally $95 and I got it for $12.50. I'm surprised I got an Adventure game more than I was getting a racing game! But I guess I'm looking for a game with humor.

-LIMBO (PC): Sorry, still haven't tried it yet. But it's supposed to be really good.

-*Dungeon Defenders (PC): Simply a magnificent game, especially if you can get some friends together to play. It's an Action-RPG Tower Defense game with progressive character tracking (levels, equipment, and skills stay with you and continues to grow).

-Gundemonium Collection (PC): I'm so ready for some Danmaku action! It's a collection of 3 bullet-hell shoot-em-up. I just gotta download and install them.

-Chantelise (PC): A Japanese Action-RPG. I think I've played the Japanese version, but I bought the game for its English translation so I can play it properly.

-*Dungeons of Dredmor (PC): I've been skeptical about this game since it came out and from its videos, but the fact is that it's a rogue-like RPG and is very difficult. I can imagine myself playing this for a really long time, and it was only $2.50 for me. Regular price is $5. If you like games like Desktop Dungeons, Hack-Slash-Crawl, Shiren The Wanderer, or The Binding of Isaac, there's a chance that you might really like Dungeons of Dredmor.

-Tobe's Vertical Adventure (PC): Looks like simple platforming fun, which is why I bought it. Downloaded and installed, I just gotta try it out.

Wow...in retrospect, I bought quite a bit of games...I'M SO READY TO GAME THIS WINTER! BWAHAHAHAHA~

Tis a good time for gaming

Before I get to the juicy stuff, I'll just have a bit of an update on my work. I'm 1/2 complete on my Street Fighter Mix and it's making me wonder if I ever want to do a mix this long again, haha. I think I should stick with individual mixes just for the sake of productivity. I started on a new composition yesterday for one of the game projects, and I heard that we're going to take that game to GDC next year (yay)! So I'm working extra hard (kinda sorta) to get the music done so that we can publish the game on XBLA in time to present at Game Developers Conference (GDC) early next year in March. I'll most likely won't be attending unless I get in free as I've heard that going a full 3 days is several hundred dollars (up to $1000 with hotel fees, transportation, etc.). Sound effects for the other project is going smoothly so far, though no real decision to choose any of the ones I created has been made. Besides those two major projects, I've finally started to work on my game two weeks ago. I'm move very slowly on it, but I've at least got most of the main gameplay down. I just need more programming, more designs, and content and then I'll get the project really rolling. Besides working on stuff like that, I'm also trying to get back more into piano and learn some new songs. Extending my knowledge to playing all sorts of different songs help me when I compose for music (I suppose...I'm still randomly playing things to create my compositions).

Now onto the gaming portion of my rant (bwahahaha)! Last week, I bought a game on Steam called Titan Quest Gold (okay, so it's two games in one package) for $5. I've been very skeptical of the game and have seen it on sale many times, but I never brought myself to getting it. I recently beat Torchlight and didn't want to continue it, but I was also very eager to play Diablo 3 (which has been pushed back to Q1 2012. So I bought Titan Quest. The first 2 hours, I was getting bored clicking on monsters. I also had the problem of going back into town every 2 minutes just to sell all the equipment I picked up. I have that habit of taking everything I see and selling them for money in RPGs. After 2 hours, I was able to choose a mastery (which determines my class) and learn new skills. Enemies started to come in large waves, but my skills allowed me to take on 10, 20, even 30 enemies because of the abilities I possessed. I was, at one point, attacking with effects of fire, poison, bleeding, sharpness, and life steal all at the same time. The game suddenly became very enticing to me! I also learned that picking up the most rarest of items was sufficient in making money (so picking up junk was taking up space in my inventory space). I was traveling around a large open world, slaying tons of enemies at the same time, picking up powerful equipment, and fighting really strong bosses. I was very happy with my purchase then, but I read online what other people thought and people said they still preferred Diablo 2 for their top-down action-RPG. I had tried Diablo 2 a few years ago (for like 5 minutes) and didn't really get into it. But seeing how it took me 2 hours to get into Titan Quest, I decided to give Diablo 2 another chance (I had the game anyways, might as well play it). Yeah, the first 1-2 hours were kind of boring, but then it pulled me in as soon as I started getting better loot (equipment), and gained new skills. More so, I started playing Diablo 2 more than Titan Quest. I still play Titan Quest, but what makes me like Diablo 2 more than most Point-n-Click Action-RPGs is that it's so fast-paced. I've been playing so many MMORPGs these many years that I forgot how fast paced an Action-RPG could be. Running around, killings hundreds of mobs, warping between cities, etc. I'm very inclined to play Diablo 1 now just so I can get the full experience of the Diablo series.

Over the weekend, I order three games on Amazon since they were in my target price range. I bought Brink for $9.99 and Bayonetta for $17.01, both for the PS3. The 3rd game is actually a birthday gift for a friend (also a PS3 game). I received the first two games yesterday and tried them out. Brink's multiplayer is dead, which I was well prepared for and is the reason why I waited until it was $10 before I got it. The game is quite challenging, and it still feels like a multiplayer experience when I'm playing solo (though, computer AIs are kinda dumb). The progression of Brink isn't what I expected. I was hoping to gradually earn my equipment along the way of leveling and gaining experience points. But the only way to get more equipment is to play the challenges, and there's only 4. So Brink won't exactly be the multiplayer-centric FPS experience I hoped for, but it'll be at least a nice distraction to play once in a while. I'll admit it's pretty fun in its own respect. I still feel ripped off by buying Homefront for $25. 4 hours of single-player campaign and 1 hours of multiplayer. Then the multiplayer community dies out completely leaving me with only 5 hours of gameplay off that game (which is sad since a game like Terraria, that I paid $2.50 for, has provided me 66 hours of gameplay and I still plan on playing it more). Bayonetta is a lot of fun, and a lot of action. Though I would have liked to pay less for it, it'll be a game that I'll enjoy. The problem is that installing it took 4.4 GB out of my hard drive. I've run out of space on my HDD, and it's becoming a real problem. I'll probably have to make some decisions to delete some installs of other games eventually.

Dark Souls came out!

Demon's Souls has made it onto my list as one of my favorite games (and I think I should consider adding Diablo 2 on that now too) and so I'm naturally very happy and excited to see the release of Dark Souls. No, I haven't bought it yet. I generally wait for games to drop in price before I buy them now since I'm never desperate to play a game on launch day anymore (except for Diablo 3, I will buy that the first day and play the heck out of it) unless I'm really really into it (such as the handheld Castlevania games). I still play Demon's Souls even now, but I try to stay away from it when I can since I get so caught up in replaying it that I neglect all other games I have that I haven't completed yet.

The Cursed Crusade is one of the games I want to get. It's a 2-player, split-screen co-op Action game. You know how rare it is to have a local co-op game nowadays? That game should be out in 3-4 days. A lot of games are coming out soon actually. Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom, The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim, and Assassin's Creed: Revelations are among the highly anticipated games. Yup, our economy might still suck right now, but the number of quality games are still coming out.

Besides gaming, did I mention that I'm (kinda) getting back into Manga and Animé? It's super hard to balance work, games, and stuff like Manga and Animé. Especially now that I'm getting back into working out at the gym again, haha. I missed at least 3 months or more of working out. My arms are all sore now from Wednesday's workout, but my legs are surprisingly alright. One other activity I regret not doing enough of or finding the time to do is reading. I just can't bring myself to sit down and read. A book I've been very wanting to finish up is "The Art of War". It's not a novel or anything, but it has insights of those of past history and philosophy that could apply to today's time. I do like reading, but, uhh, I like other stuff much more to read as much as I want to...(music, art, gaming, etc.) Well, I think I've ranted long enough. Until next month~

Back on track...sorta

It's already the end of the month! I didn't get much done at all this month, and it makes me sad...BUT, I've been having some fun. I got to hang out with my close friends early this month right before they all went back to their respective colleges. League of Legends' Dominion mode finally came out and I've been playing that with my friend whenever we have the chance. Rusty Hearts came out and is being hosted on Steam as well. I started playing it and I happened to learn the theme for the Character Select. This has lead me to playing some more piano as I've been neglecting it for producing music and practicing guitar recently. I bought Dragon Age 2 and am loving it. The dialogues are quirky, humorous, and interesting to listen to. I finally finished Torchlight a few nights ago (after 20 hours of gameplay) only to find out that there's more after the ending. Also, the ending of Torchlight sucked...It was pretty much a "oh, I've defeated the main boss, but there seems to be more amiss and I must prepare myself" self-dialogue and that was it. Oh well, I guess I mostly enjoyed the game, but it makes me that much more excited for Diablo 3.

There's actually a lot of games to look forward to this upcoming fall/winter and next year: Dark Souls, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Diablo 3, Phantasy Star Online 2 (I really hope this gets brought over to America), Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, etc. I'm hoping for some better games to come out on the Nintendo 3DS. In fact, I hope a new version of the 3DS comes out since I'm still not convinced of buying one. There's also been some great games that came out recently that I haven't got yet (mainly because I'm still working on older games I haven't finished) such as Dead Island and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

I'm still looking for a job right now, and I'm searching to no avail. It seems the open slots for positions in companies this year is a lot worse than last year for some reason. Looking at the market and the economic movements (mainly on how China's economics is bringing down the global market), I'd say we're slipping back into a recession (or we never got out of it). So far the time being, I'm working on music for one project and sound effects for another. Both projects plan to be published on X-box Live Arcade, so I'm working hard to give the quality of a published game. I've been wanting to work on my own projects, but I've either been busy or lazy these past few weeks and focus mainly on job searching, practicing guitar, writing for the main blog, or working on those two projects. I work all day and by night time I just want to relax and so I've been getting back into reading manga and I've been playing games. I need to stop being lazy and start prioritizing my time. I haven't been going to the gym as I once did very often religiously each week and I do minimal floor exercises each day. There's so much I want to do, but never enough time in the day to do them. Most of my day is spent researching and writing my blog for Superpad Unplugged, though I'm not convinced that my writing has improved all that much. Oh well, I'll find a way to get thing sorted out.

Real Summer Break

I'm getting a real break now that I no long have a job (again) and am once again looking up companies that are hiring. Although I'm no longer employed, I'm still diligently working on my videogame blog everyday and still working on music along side with applying for jobs. I did a music cover of "Skream - Where You Should Be" (instruments, voice, and everything) and posted it on Facebook, so that's one thing I finished. I'm thinking of working on my own games starting after my sister and friends go back to school. At the moment, I just want to spend time with them while I still can. Besides that, I'm obviously playing games and working on finishing some of them. I'm STILL not done with Metal Gear Solid 3, and so I think I'm going to finish that today (on the last boss). I borrowed God of War Collection from a friend and I'm finishing up GoW 1 on that disc. I also bought Dragon Age 2 since it was $25 at Target (I got the last copy there too). Besides that, I've been playing all sorts of games on my PC, mainly because of the steam games. I've reached up to 56 hours on Terraria and have slowed down on how much I play it. I found out last night that my VVVVVV save file is gone because of the update to v2.0 and its new features, soooo I might play that over again since I never got to 100% it. Although I said I would take a break from FPS 2 months ago, I have bought games like FEAR collection, Medal of Honor: Airborne, and Section 8 Prejudice. Section 8 Prejudice was a surprising delight to play, but barely anyone is on the servers playing anymore for multiplayer. I've been enjoying some "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" when it's not crashing. For some reason, it would crash and say that an error has occurred. I'm still working on Torchlight in wait for Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3. I want to get into my bigger games such as the Assassin's Creed series, Fallout 3, Bioshock 1 & 2, and definitely Mass Effect 1 & 2. It's been nearly a year since I bought ME 1 & 2, and so I think it deserves some more attention from me. Besides that, I have barely touched my Wii (except to occasionally play "Valhalla Knights: The Eldar Saga") and so I want to beat most of the games I have. Even with all these games, I'm still looking forward to so many others that are coming out: Phantasy Star Online 2, Diablo 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Torchlight 2, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and versus, Deus Ex: Human Revolution (which came out this week), Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed Revelations, and oh oh COUNTER-STRIKE GLOBAL OFFENSIVE

I wasn't expecting a new Counter-Strike game, but I heard about it just a few weeks ago. Today, trailers went up and some gameplay was shown. It's not a new iteration as much as a make over with new textures, animations, weapons, maps, modes, and such, but I'm still excited about it. Apparently, all the other Counter-Strike games went on sale today on Steam. I think I might get the older ones again for old times sake.

Anyways, wish me luck in finding a job or striking it big with my indie games (if I ever do get it out there).

A taste of what Summer could be like

These past 11 days were pretty amazing in terms of Steam Deals. Steam is a gaming service platform that was originally initiated to distribute Valve's, the creators of the program, games on it. Steam eventually became on of the biggest contributors to digital distribution for PC gaming not only for big name publishers, but a lot of indie developers as well. More than often, Steam has special sales that would bring down the prices of games to insane discounts. Most all games I've bought have been under $10 with the few exceptions where I spent more than $20 for each game. The past 11 days have been the summer sales where a majority of the games on the platform has a discount with each day, 12 games get a even bigger discount. One of the games I was really happy to buy was an indie game called Terraria (which I could've bought at a retail price of $9.99, but meh, I got it for $2.49) which is practically a 2D version of Minecraft.

I've tried Minecraft before and really liked it, but resisted buying in fear that I would spend too much time building stuff and neglecting all my other games that needs playing and finishing. But when I saw Terraria, it was a lot harder to resist. Terraria is more combat and exploration based while Minecraft is more constructing and social based. I really like the game thus far, but I will limit myself on how much I play it just so I can get some projects done and allow some time to play other games.

Anyways, one of my friends came back home and so I've been getting the chance to hang out with her and my other friends. It's been giving me more opportunities to get out of the house when so much of my work requires me to sit in front of a computer or desk. It reminds me of the past summers where we just hung out, played outside and didn't have to care too much about responsibilities. It's also been nice to find some time to play online games with friends and to just sit back and relax (I even read a little recently!). I still haven't really found the time to watch animé again, but I'm trying to make some time for reading as it's probably better for me (especially my eyes) if I take a break from monitors and television sets. It makes me so happy when I'm able to enjoy all that I can during the weekends. But once Monday hits, it's back to taking care of work again.

I haven't heard back from the two teams I've been working with for the game projects, I'm probably going to need to contact them again soon. Other than that, I feel like I'm starting to neglect on my music as well as my art. I'm probably going to try working with some more music and quickly jump back into game development again just because it's the easiest way to get me drawing again. On writing, I don't know if I want to work anything beyond my job and blogging because that's already tiring enough (and a lot of writing for each day). I've been doing the blogging on weekends as well for the past two weeks because of the steam sales. The problem is, I still haven't found the time to really give exposure to my blog and so traffic is still at a minimum. More than that though, I want to build up my online portfolio so I can start using it for job searching. I've been working so long and hard now that it's hard to face trying to switch to another job, even if they do hire me. Problem is I haven't heard from any other company other than Activision recently, and even then they said that it's only a possibility.

Despite that, I think everything is starting to look better. I'm getting work done, I'm getting to hang out with friends, there's some free time to relax, but I do have to admit trying to keep an active lifestyle is hard (been going to the gym, but I want to swim more since it's summer).

Missing Summer Break

It's near the end of June and Summer has begun. The difference now is that I don't get a summer break and I continue to work. I also don't get vacation time either. My birthday came and went faster than any weekend I've had in the past half year since I started working. I didn't do anything that special, but at least I had fun.

The day before my birthday, I just called over 6 friends over (4 of them made it), connected an extra PS3 one of my friends brought over and played Call of Duty: Black Ops the whole day. We had some pretty exciting matches online, and it was so different being able to yell out and coordinate with each other rather than trying to guess what other players are doing online. We played some Zombie mode too, and it was the first time I played with 4 players. It was still difficult and we didn't really get that far (I think round 16 was as far as we went). My parents cooked an incredible dinner and I had my aunt's family come over to join us. At night, we got our computers together to have a LAN night. Before we started, two of my friends presented me with a pair of Sennheiser headphones as my birthday present which I was surprised with and very happy with since I recently had two headphones break. We played Global Agenda (GA), which became free-to-play now, and I really enjoyed it. I've had GA since last July, but didn't play that much since it always took so long to load and it was graphically laggy for me. But I really wanted to play it with some friends and it was really fun. Unfortunately, one of my friend's laptop kept crashing and he didn't get to play that much. He was so tired that he himself crashed at around 1AM. We tried playing with random players for mission mode, but I realized that players are a lot more inexperienced than before because of the transition to free-to-play. I couldn't believe how bad some of the people were playing and kind of miss the quality of players the game once had. The good thing is that it's much more populated now. I think I'll be playing GA more, and I should after spending $35 to buy it last year. We switched over to good old Counter-Strike Source and played for a while, but my other friend got tired too (considering it was already 3AM). I continued to play GA with my friend who wasn't tired yet, as I was, and got him to level 10 so that we could play Player vs. Player. The first match was pretty bad and our team mates were rather uncooperative. The 2nd match we had was really fun though. Everyone was at the capture point, a lot of fighting was going on, and it was much more involving than the first match. By the time we finished, it was 4:43AM and we were both tired. I was thoroughly satisfied being able to play Global Agenda, it was a lot of fun. I kind of wish we had more time to play Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 2, but we ended up playing some more Counter-Strike Source the next morning. I played some Crysis 2 with my friend who knocked out first the night before and switched off on multiplayer while preparing to go play Tennis. Crysis 2 is a lot of fun, and I think I'm going to get it the next time it drops below $30. When we went to play Tennis, it was rather hot. Okay, it was VERY hot! I wore dark clothing and I forgot to bring water with me. There wasn't that much shade at all on the court and I haven't exercised for 3 weeks ever since I got sick. So after barely 30 minutes, I stood under the patch of shade I could get under and watched my two friends play. Unfortunately, my father wasn't feeling well, sooo we didn't go out for dinner that night. I barely remember what I did after dinner; I think I watched Dragon Ball Z Abridged videos and then went to sleep. Yeah, my birthday wasn't very special this time, but at least I had a bit of fun.

In news of games, I'm not even sure where to start. I guess I can talk a little about the stuff from E3 last month. E3 wasn't spectacular, and there wasn't that many games that were announced that no one didn't already know about. I guess one of the coolest news was the announcement of Nintendo's new system, the Wii U. It has a touch screen controller with a camera and microphone as well as a motion sensor device, and a traditional key layout with two joysticks, 4 face buttons and 4 shoulder buttons. The system will also support graphics synonymous to the Playstation 3. For games, most of the ones I'm excited about has already been announced before. I'm really excited for Dark Souls, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (kinda sorta), Blacklight Retribution, Elder Scroll V: Skyrim, and the one game I haven't heard until E3: Dragon's Dogma.

Most of these games won't be out until the end of this year or later next year. There also many other games that's worth mentioning that was shown at E3 such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Mass Effect 3, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, 3DS games and such, but I'm still working on the predecessor's of those games so I'm in no rush to look at those games yet.

A lot of exciting new things have been happening on Valve's Steam program recently. Daily Deals have been introduced, and so a selected game will been on sale each and everyday now alongside with the usual mid-week madness sales and weekend deals. Steam has also started supported Free-to-play MMOs from publishers like ijji and Perfect World on their platform. It's nothing too new to me since Champions online has been on Steam for a while and recently became free-to-play as well as Global Agenda. Aside from those two, there were 3 other games that were announced as being hosted on the program when they launched the support. There was Alliance of Valiant Arms from ijji (which I have played already with an ijji account) and the other two are Spiral Knights from Sega and Forsaken World by Perfect World (which I've been wanting to play but have had trouble getting the client). The biggest plus for me on this new structure is being able to download the clients of free MMOs with less trouble. Aside from support 3rd-party MMOs, Valve also announced transitioning to a free-to-play model as well. Everyone's speculation was that DotA 2 was going to be free when it released (and it's still possible). Just last week, Valve revealed that their incredibly successful First-Person Shooter game Team Fortress 2 was free-to-play. Looking at it now, I'm not surprised. Their micro-transaction store has been surprisingly successful and Team Fortress 2 is generally $10 anyways. With items costing $15-$200, they might as well turn it into a free-to-play game to attract more customers. I would say that Valve is being greedy with it, but they have provided the players with so much service and free content with some of the best quality gameplay in online gaming that I hardly care. They also FINALLY released the "Meet the Medic" video that fans have been waiting for years for. The only one missing at the moment is the Pyro.

I'd really like to get back into MMORPGs, but I also want to finish more of the retail games I have collected in the past few years. I tried out Eden Eternal during beta and it was pretty interesting. Once you reach a certain level, you can change into any class you want whenever you want. There still seems to be a lot of grinding though. Besides Global Agenda, I think the one MMO that will release that I'll want to get into is Guild Wars 2.

I seriously had no interest in the game until just a little while ago when I started to see some of the changes and new classes that they're adding to the game. The gameplay just intrigues me since it's Guild Wars 2 seems to want to aim for the "non-grinding" type of gameplay that its predecessors had. I never did finish Guild Wars Factions, and I would still really like to sometime soon. For other MMOs, I have barely tried out Spiral Knights and Forsaken World, so I'll be playing more of those as well as Vindictus which I have relentlessly have neglected, even after waiting for so many years for it to come out. There were a few other MMOs I wanted to try out, but I think I'm biting off more than I can chew. I know for sure that I'm doing that with retail games.

Last night was a very bad night to play FPS games. After a really long day of work and finishing up my other responsibilities, it was already 10:30PM. So I decided I wanted to play some FPS on PC to test out my new headphones some more, but updates were being downloaded and applied on Steam. So I started the night with Medal of Honor (2010) which I usually have no problem playing at all. Last night was just terrible as every shot I successfully landed didn't count as the server recognized that I was killed first. This continued to happen 5 games in a row. I understand that the game is laggy sometimes, but I've never had so many kills denied before. True, I was 2nd in the team every match, but I always ended up with a negative k/d ratio which is no good in my eyes. By the 6th match, it was already so dumb that I couldn't even move. I forgot about how badly implemented the spawning system was that players could predict exactly where you spawn and kill you before you even move. I gave up and switched over to Team Fortress 2 since I haven't played for so long. I was up to 5 kills and 5 deaths when suddenly the server shut down. I love Team Fortress 2, but one thing I really hate about playing it is how ridiculously long it takes to connect to server. I just gave up tryingn to connect to another server and moved onto playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2. My team was really bad in trying to attack in "Rush" and we were kept at bay the entire time. When we lost and switched positions to defend, we couldn't do a thing at all. 2 Helicopters hovered above our base, spawn killing my entire team and me. A ship was constantly barraging our cases and a ton of men rushed in to set the charges with no one being able to get near. After dying 10 ridiculous deaths and being backed into our last base, I gave up on that too. I just wanted to play something simple and kill in-game at that point, so I started up Counter-Strike Source and got into a gungame. Counter-Strike can seriously be one of the dumbest games to play sometimes as some people can take 3 straight shots to the head from a shotgun and not die while a single bullet from a pistol can take me out. I couldn't tell whether players were using aim-bot or not since gungames immediately respawn a player after dying, but it was still very frustrating nonetheless. I ended up negative every match and was pissed as hell by then. My last hope was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Guess what? I couldn't connect to a single game. 10,000 players online and I couldn't connect to a single game, that is sad. I think after last night, I need to take a break from multiplayer FPS games as it has betrayed me in every way. I ended the night playing Dynasty Warriors 7 and it did make me feel a lot better. I'm still so amazed on how great Dynasty Warriors 7 turned out and am really glad I bought it. I think I should focus on retail games and MMOs for a while, it's much less rage inducing.

Besides my regular everyday job for work, I have picked up two projects to work on over the summer. One of them got back to me yesterday and explained that the project will possibly slow down a lot more now which makes me think that it may not finish. I think I need a new rule on making music in that the game is at the very least playable or near finished before I agree to make music for it. The other project is one I previously worked with for the Game Jam Spring 2011 competition. The team wants to polish it up and host it on Xbox Live Arcade and needs about 7 more songs or so. Besides these two projects, I think I should consider dropping all other ones I had before to start moving forward and making my own games. I have yet to even touch the Starcraft 2 editor which I purposely bought to practice with. So I'm still practicing my art (barely) and still working with more music to prepare for my own game developments. I've been still trying my best to practice piano when I can, but I simply cannot play as well as I did when I was Jr. College which I practiced everyday back then (at least technically). I think I've gained a better understanding of playing music on the piano, but my dexterity and nimbleness has faded with the lack of practice. For guitar, I think I've actually improved a lot from what I used to be able to do. I'm thinking of doing some more demonstrations and practices that I have been doing on Facebook as an incentive to continue learning more. For violin, I have become more comfortable to use more parts of the strings and bow rather than staying near the top all the time. Can't say that I've improved that much more on violin though. I'll need to buy a new bow and I need to change my bent bridge. I'm hoping to go to guitar center sometime soon and finally get my first Electric Bass, which I've been wanting for a while now. So even now, I'm still staying very active in music. Writing is something I'm staying very active in with my blog: http://superpad.blogspot.com/ And it's also my main role for work to edit texts and create new ones. I'm really not sure what to do anymore since my future is so blurred right now. There's things I want to do in terms of career, and then there's things I want to do for enjoyment like playing games and reading books (yes, reading book. I feel like I can't since I feel like I'm wasting time reading a book when I really want to play a game). And then of course there are the things I need to do: have a steady job, build up experience in working, keep going to the gym to stay somewhat active, etc. I barely have enough time to work on game development, art, music, and reading/writing (not blogging). I guess you can say I feel trapped within my own life, but I suppose everyone does when they're stuck with what they don't want to do.

I think that's enough ranting for one post. June was rather short, and I feel like I've accomplished very little. I'm really glad a few of my friends are back home for the summer, that's for sure. It feels really sucky to be working throughout summer when it's so beautiful outside (well, not today since it's all cloudy and cold) and it reminds so much of my past summers of being free from responsibilities and allowing myself to be carefree. This may be the year of the rabbit (supposedly brings tons of luck to those born in that year, which is my year), but so far it's been pretty sucky which very few occasions where I felt honestly happy. Now that my birthday has passed, I hope things will get better for me.

E3 is next month!

I won't be able to attend E3 this year, but I'm still excited for it. There's a ton of good games to be showcased at this year's E3 and I am particularly hoping to hear more about Phantasy Star Online 2!

I did a post on today's superpad blog on it: http://superpad.blogspot.com/

I'm not sure what else to talk about right now. I just bought Dynasty Warriors 7 today and will try it out tonight. I have a lot of work lined up to do, but I feel sorta lazy for some reason. There's a lot of things I want to do, but too much of what I need to do to make time. I finally beat Demon's Souls and I started a new character and beat it again in 1/3 of the time (68 hours the first time, 21 hours the 2nd time). Dark Souls will be shown at E3 this year I think, so there will be more gameplay footages to show hopefully. There's a lot of good games coming out, but I guess I'm so overwhelmed by uncompleted games, work, and projects that I'm even more selective of my games than before. Well, I don't want to continue ranting on for the heck of it. Guess we'll get to see a lot of cool games next month once the press gets news at E3.

Busy Days - Lots of music though!

Wow, I totally missed a post for the month of March. Time goes by a lot faster when I'm not in school anymore, haha. It's going much quicker than I would like, I barely get things done in time which makes me question about my own ambitions (in my pursuit of Game design, art, music, writing, film, photography and media).

Just in the past month, I have bought a brand new Numark Mixer board to mess around with DJ stuff and to use as a controller. I also bought an Akai LPD8 Drum Pad Controller (I've always wanted one). To test them out, I made a few sample videos (check 'em out on Facebook under videos). Just this past week was another Game Jam competition for the Videogame Development Club and I got to do music for them again. This time, I had the honor of taking on 3 teams out of 5 from my usual 2 teams. My sleeping schedule got really messed up because of it, but I feel very happy from the songs I produced. After finishing, I've been feeling kind of empty the past 2 days. All of a sudden, I really want to get back into drawing. Perhaps it has something to do with this week's theme for my videogame blog on "Web Comics" (check it out here: http://superpad.blogspot.com/search?q=web+comics). I remember back in Jr. College, I drew as much as I played piano. Videogames were more of a leisure time thing to do if I could get away with it amongst my school work. But now, I get so serious when I play videogames and have become so critical with what I'm playing because of all the game reviews and design write-ups I do now. I do more writing than music, art, and game playing combined ever since the beginning of the year. I always knew I liked writing, but "this" much? I really hope something good comes out of this, such as being able to write magnificent stories for RPGs or something. I think I'm going to try to focus on Art more from now on so that I don't drop out entirely from that medium. Drawing is far too important in my life to give up on, despite music and writing being my stronger suits now (and that still doesn't amount to that much...still haven't gotten a job in game development yet). I still have that feeling of being lost in the moment and not knowing what I want to do in my present state, mainly because I have so much I WANT to do. I already have a line-up of game projects I want to do, but they require every bit of my past experience and skills to do: Drawing, animating, level design, writing, music, sound, voice acting, and (ugh...) programming (I don't think I'll ever get that deep into it).

In terms of videogames:

I bought Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 and really liked it! But like many fighting games, there's a desire to play against friends and human players rather than against computers all the time so I haven't played the game for a few weeks now. I forget what the reason was, but I started to get back into Street Fighter IV again. I still haven't gotten SSFIV yet and question whether I should get it. I'm trying to get back into MMOs, but I'm afraid of playing hours and hours only to give up on it. Vindictus has been pretty good though. It follows a story, it has a distinct start and finish of each chapter, the game requires attention and skill over planning and point-n-click style, and I really don't need to spend that much time on it. I tried out Crime Craft and I have to say that it's really interesting, but also a little dull. For one, the game is silent (no music) and has the player go into the same instance over and over. But the concept of every player having their own agenda to tend to but still being able to help out other players was very intriguing to me. I tried out an old MMORPG called Tales Weaver and liked how the game follows a distinct story with dialogue and characters, but the game is practically empty, the game consists of grinding, and the servers are rather slow. EA released a free FPS called Battlefield Play4Free and it's not that bad. It uses the maps from Battlefield 2 while borrowing aspects that they used in Battlefield Bad Company 2. I've been going a bit lighter on the FPS lately which is a good thing. I think I'm finally making a breakthrough with getting back into RPGs and Action games with Demon's Souls (yup, still playing it with close to 60 hours of gameplay on it). I still play Call of Duty: Black Ops, MAG, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 once in a while, but Demon's Souls has really captivated my attention on tactics, forging special weapons, playing different classes and such. I won my first PvP match last night when a player was summoned as a boss I had to fight for one of the levels. It lasted pretty long, and I almost lost 3-4 times. I think I'll be getting back into FPS a little since I haven't touched the campaign for CoD:Black Ops yet. Aside from those, the next game I have my eye on is Dynasty Warriors 7:

It really looks like Koei improved it. I was disappointed with DW6 despite their efforts in changing the game. It seems that Koei took everything they used and learned from Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce, Samurai Warriors 3, and Warriors Orochi Z (I can't believe they're not bringing that over...) and implemented it into DW7 to create a truly wonderful experience that it once was. I'm seeing a lack in custom officer for it, so that makes me a bit sad since I really wanted to play my own character in their new Conquest mode. I started playing Dynasty Warriors 6 again because of the hype I got out of Dynasty Warriors 7. The game is already out, but I'm in no rush to buy any new games right now since I have a ridiculous backlog I want to (at least) partially clear out first (especially on PS2 and Wii). So Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Gameboy 3DS, and other awesome game stuff I'm willing to wait out while I finish some games I have and to catch up on projects that's craving my attention right now. I think this year I'll be going heavy on the music projects, but I really hope I get some game projects completed as well. I am still all for getting back into drawing though.

Into the year 2011

Wow, has it really been that long since I last posted on here? I meant to do on in January, but I've been ridiculously busy. From Monday-Friday, I'm working helping out on an Online game, then I write a post on my business blog, and just recently I started going to a martial arts dojo with one of my friends. By the time I get home, I eat dinner, take a shower, and don't feel like working anymore and end up playing something. If I get free time during the day, I use it to continue looking for open positions in the game industry. If I'm lucky, I work on my own projects. I finished the trance remix for the Zanac project I've planned from back in Jr. College, but I'm still finishing up the piano arrangements for it. I plan to move into work on game development, or do one of two things: practice art or continue working on music. I haven't drawn anything since October of 2010. Even with music, I only have time to practice on weekends. When I do, I practice 1-3 hours which leaves me tired and don't feel like drawing, haha. Life seems to give me very little time to let me do what I want anymore.

Anyways, it's 2011. It's the year of the Rabbit, which means I'll be turning 24. Oh man, 24...It feels weird to be in twenties when I don't feel like I want all that responsibility and age mentality. But I hope that since it's my horoscope year, I'll have some luck. I made my new years resolution and put it up on facebook so that I don't forget:

New Year's Resolution:
1) Land a job in the Interactive Entertainment Industry, or at the very least Editorial relating to the industry
2) Produce as much composition/mixes/covers of music as possible
3) Get serious in developing indie games and set up an awesome portal to my work
4) Draw a lot! Traditional, digital, anything! I must get back into art again. Video and Photography too.
5) Beat as many videogames as possible AND continue to write design analysis for each one. One more step towards becoming a game designer~

Let's see if I can hold to those claims. Aside from my working side of life, I'm not sure what to say about my free-time life. I still haven't beaten Metal Gear Solid 3 which bugs me since I want to get through it. I've been more inclined to play my PS3 lately and just these past 2 weeks I started playing Demon's Souls a little more seriously. I'm getting more used to how the game works and have beaten the 2nd boss and got my physical body back (only to lose it a week later when I fell down within a tower when I was soul farming) and started to get better equipment. The game's really fun, and it keeps pulling me back in just how Phantasy Star Online Ep. 1 & 2 did. I guess I haven't said anything since Christmas eve, but I bought a lot of games during the Steam Holiday sales. So I've been playing games on PC as well as PS3. I try getting back into playing Wii, but it's always so inconvenient since the TV for it is usually unavailable. In the end, I've been still stuck with my FPS phase and been playing all sorts: Call of Duty Black Ops (I got it for Christmas, yay!), Medal of Honor (2010), Battlefield 2: Bad Company 2, Blacklight: Tango Down, MAG, Breach, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, etc. It's not that I don't like playing other genres, but rather I keep having the urge to play FPS. It hasn't been as bad the past 2 weeks since I've been playing Demon's Souls, and I played fighting games last night with my dad. Still, if I had more time in the day, I'd be playing a lot more and trying to actually finish games like I did before during the summer. I actually really miss playing MMOs, but I'm afraid to get back into them since I won't be completing any games that way.

Sorry, no videos or pictures to share this time. It's been mainly work and productivity for me lately, and it makes me a little sad when I can't work on my own stuff and have more free time to play. Here's the link to my business blog just in case you haven't seen it yet: http://superpad.blogspot.com/ I talked about "free games" in the past week. It was kind of a like a trip through memory lane of all the free games I used to play. Well, I should really use the remaining time of the day to either work on projects or play some games before I start doing more work tomorrow.