So I'm back on track on practicing music again. I've been doing practice sessions, experimenting with recording, and playing piano/guitar a bit more regularly. Despite all the efforts I'm putting in, I feel that I should've done more this year. I made good progress with completing games, and I learn a lot for sure; however, I've also accumulated a lot more games and possibly have a larger back-log than before. I also didn't draw anything other than the Team Fortress 2 picture at the beginning of the year. I think I need to go back into drawing comics to get myself hyped up about drawing again. I never got around to making my online profile, but I think I have the materials I want to put up now through the work I did for Camera Obscura. In any case, I'm putting a lot of work behind me these next two weeks as I relax and enjoy the games I've bought and will be buying as Steam Winter Sales has started today!
This past month, I made progress on a lot of PC games. I finally got around to playing Shank and surprisingly enjoyed it a lot. It's a game that you'd have to play to know what it's like as the videos don't really convey the controls and feel of the game the way it does when playing it. I finally beat Resident Evil Revelations a few nights ago on my 3DS.
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
It seems IGN didn't really like the story. I actually really enjoyed it. The game still holds on to more of its action-orientated combat system of the newer Resident Evil games, but it also feels closer to the originals where they're more scary and put tension on the player. After completing it, I continued playing Raid mode and really liked how I was able to mow through enemies, find stronger weapons, and level up like in an RPG. But right now, I practically completed all my 3DS games and crave for a new game. I'm thinking of getting Code of Princess or Paper Mario Sticker Star, but not sure if I should at the moment as I'm going to be spending quite a bit on Steam Winter Sale games.
This past week, I've been feeling some odd pain in my lower left abdomen. Two nights ago, it got really bad and it got me worried. I'm not sure if it's a muscle spasm or if I have a lot of air trapped or what. I'm feeling a lot better today than earlier this week, but I still feel a bit off which worries me. Hopefully it's nothing serious and nothing I have to worry about.
In any case, I'm off to finish the remaining work I have and start enjoying my binge on gaming for the next two weeks. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
The holidays closes in
Ever since I finished my major part of Camera Obscura, I haven't really been doing much. I did a little bit of job searching (though I'm not as diligent as I used to be), did mostly writing, and practicing a bit on music since I haven't in a long time. There's one last major thing I wanted to work on Camera Obscura and I suppose I'll share that when the time is right. I should be working on my portfolio so that it'd make job searching somewhat easier, but I still haven't gotten around to that. Then of course, I've been working on my ever-growing backlog of games.
For PS3, I'm mostly working on Eternal Sonata as it's been 2 years since I've had it and I want to lower the amount of RPGs I have so I'll have free time to actually start Final Fantasy XIII. It's so sad, I bought FF13 on the first week it was out and even bought FF13-2 this year, yet I have not started on it yet (first 15 minutes, but that's about it). I finally got through the campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. It was surprisingly good, but the ending I didn't know how I felt. I kinda liked it, but also felt...empty? Maybe I just wanted more closure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Activision wanted the developers to start another trilogy off of the series.
I've been trying to get back into my backlog off PS2 games since I really want to play Persona 3 and 4 now (I bought Persona 4 Arena for the PS3 and am now curious about the original game).
I had finished Devil Kings (Okay, only one of the characters...) and Silpheed: The Lost Planet I skipped because it was just way too boring. I then started up Castlevania: The Curse of Darkness and totally felt lost until I looked up where I was on Gamefaqs. It seems I stopped playing the game right before I go into Dracula's Castle, so I'm pretty close. So I want to complete that and Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven before I start on the Persona games. I had finally finished Nightshade, and it was painfully bad. Perhaps I am bias liking Shinobi so much, but Nightshade doesn't feel like it was developed by the same team.
On my 3DS, I completed Heroes of Ruin and enjoyed but was shocked to find that there wasn't any end-game content. A lot of RPGs like those have end-game content nowadays. I'm currently working on Resident Evil: Revelations and understand why so many people liked it. It's a really well designed Action-Horror game and has incredible graphics for a handheld.
I want to say I've made the most progress on PC, but it doesn't seem so looking through my completed list of games. I had bought The Darkness 2 for $6 and ended up enjoying the game a lot and completing the main campaign in 5 hours. I also completed Borderlands 2 with some friends. It was a lot harder than the first game. In the past week or so, I have bought Hero's Academy, The Lord of Rings: War in the North, Awesomenauts, and Spec Ops: The Line.
The opening of Awesomenauts is so cheesy that it's great! The game itself is simplistic and a lot of fun, but it can also depend on who you play with much like other Online games. When I tried the game, I had a great experience with a team who knew what they were doing and I grasped the concept of the game fairly quickly from a practice match. But after I bought the game, I have had team members with no team work against players who knew exactly what they were doing. Other times, I went against players when all my team mates were bots. I feel like I stepped into a trap where no one really plays the game that much. Thankfully, the game can still be played against bots, and they can be pretty challenging when set to higher levels. I haven't installed Spec Ops: The Line yet since I'm trying to finish up my other 3rd-person shooters first, but I got it for $6 so I think I'll be at least able to enjoy a meaningful single-player campaign. I haven't had much time with Hero's Academy yet, but I'm already regretting buying the DLCs. LotR: War in the North has gotten poor reviews in the past, but I got it on an unbelievable sale of $3.75 and wanted to give it a chance. I can see some of the flaws the game has, but so far it's a lot of fun.
Thanksgiving is in 2 days and I'll be able to see some of my friends and family which I'm really happy about. Then there are the upcoming Steam sales happening tomorrow and next month. Needless to say, I'm pretty afraid. I don't think I've ever bought as many games as I have this year. It'd be nice if I actually had more time to enjoy them all.
For PS3, I'm mostly working on Eternal Sonata as it's been 2 years since I've had it and I want to lower the amount of RPGs I have so I'll have free time to actually start Final Fantasy XIII. It's so sad, I bought FF13 on the first week it was out and even bought FF13-2 this year, yet I have not started on it yet (first 15 minutes, but that's about it). I finally got through the campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. It was surprisingly good, but the ending I didn't know how I felt. I kinda liked it, but also felt...empty? Maybe I just wanted more closure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Activision wanted the developers to start another trilogy off of the series.
I've been trying to get back into my backlog off PS2 games since I really want to play Persona 3 and 4 now (I bought Persona 4 Arena for the PS3 and am now curious about the original game).
I had finished Devil Kings (Okay, only one of the characters...) and Silpheed: The Lost Planet I skipped because it was just way too boring. I then started up Castlevania: The Curse of Darkness and totally felt lost until I looked up where I was on Gamefaqs. It seems I stopped playing the game right before I go into Dracula's Castle, so I'm pretty close. So I want to complete that and Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven before I start on the Persona games. I had finally finished Nightshade, and it was painfully bad. Perhaps I am bias liking Shinobi so much, but Nightshade doesn't feel like it was developed by the same team.
On my 3DS, I completed Heroes of Ruin and enjoyed but was shocked to find that there wasn't any end-game content. A lot of RPGs like those have end-game content nowadays. I'm currently working on Resident Evil: Revelations and understand why so many people liked it. It's a really well designed Action-Horror game and has incredible graphics for a handheld.
I want to say I've made the most progress on PC, but it doesn't seem so looking through my completed list of games. I had bought The Darkness 2 for $6 and ended up enjoying the game a lot and completing the main campaign in 5 hours. I also completed Borderlands 2 with some friends. It was a lot harder than the first game. In the past week or so, I have bought Hero's Academy, The Lord of Rings: War in the North, Awesomenauts, and Spec Ops: The Line.
The opening of Awesomenauts is so cheesy that it's great! The game itself is simplistic and a lot of fun, but it can also depend on who you play with much like other Online games. When I tried the game, I had a great experience with a team who knew what they were doing and I grasped the concept of the game fairly quickly from a practice match. But after I bought the game, I have had team members with no team work against players who knew exactly what they were doing. Other times, I went against players when all my team mates were bots. I feel like I stepped into a trap where no one really plays the game that much. Thankfully, the game can still be played against bots, and they can be pretty challenging when set to higher levels. I haven't installed Spec Ops: The Line yet since I'm trying to finish up my other 3rd-person shooters first, but I got it for $6 so I think I'll be at least able to enjoy a meaningful single-player campaign. I haven't had much time with Hero's Academy yet, but I'm already regretting buying the DLCs. LotR: War in the North has gotten poor reviews in the past, but I got it on an unbelievable sale of $3.75 and wanted to give it a chance. I can see some of the flaws the game has, but so far it's a lot of fun.
Thanksgiving is in 2 days and I'll be able to see some of my friends and family which I'm really happy about. Then there are the upcoming Steam sales happening tomorrow and next month. Needless to say, I'm pretty afraid. I don't think I've ever bought as many games as I have this year. It'd be nice if I actually had more time to enjoy them all.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Working hard and getting sick...
I can't believe one month has already pass by. I got really busy as mentioned last post and I got a lot done. In the first week, I composed and produced 3 songs and arranged one song for Trail Blazer. That one week was nuts. When I took a short break after the first day, my friend knew I was drained since I barely spoke at all while playing Diablo 3. I was essentially a zombie in working mode. With that said, Trail Blazer is available for download.
You can download it here: http://biasedvideogamerblog.com/blog:trail-blazer-pc
I'm really not used to Western-themed music, so it was quite a challenge composing the songs with that sort of flavor. I tried out the game and it's pretty challenging. It's a pretty good desktop game to pass the time. So right after finishing up Trail Blazer, I immediately put all my energy into working on one last song for Camera Obscura. It's for a chase scene and is the final level of the game, so I was asked to make it as epic as possible. So threw on layers upon layers of octaves, lots of uplifting strings, horns, and vocals, and the most dramatic and dissonant chord strikes at the end of the song should the player get the bad ending. The third week was actually pretty relaxing as I tweaked and worked with the volume and balance of the song. The team really liked it and would like me to work on an extended version of it which I suppose I'll do in the near future. I can't really share it right now as I want it to be kept under wraps until we can get it more polished before showing it to the public. This fourth week though, has been miserable.
I'm guessing that I got whatever bug my father had last week and Sunday morning, I started coughing and getting symptoms of illness. So the first night, I just took some cough medicine and went to sleep with little to no problem. The next day, I had a sore throat, I started coughing more often, and my body started to hurt everywhere. It felt like my coughing wasn't as serious the 2nd day, so I decided to skip on the cough medicine as I suspected it was the thing that made my body hurt all over and just took a painkiller for my headache from all the coughing I had. I could barely sleep that night. I was up all night coughing and tossing about. The 3rd day is when everything started crashing down on me. My illness started to fade and I felt pretty good the next morning, but something hit me hard by the afternoon. Whenever I get sick, there's a chance that my hay fever will react and give me some bad allergic reactions. And so it happened: I started sneezing, coughing and having watery eyes, stuffy nose, runny nose, body aches and a really bad headache. It was so painful and unbearable that I couldn't even relax. I couldn't play games, I couldn't watch videos, and I could barely stand to listen to music. I decided to go to sleep at 10PM that third night. I took a stronger cough medicine and had the craziest mind trip ever. It's not the first time I hallucinated through my sleep while being sick, but it's always an odd experience each time I have it. Right from the beginning of sleep, I was shaking violently of coldness and I knew my whole body would be in severe pain if I let it continue. So I had 4 layers of blankets cover me that night just so I wouldn't move around as much and keep the heat within my body. In just the first 2.5 hours of sleep, I had one crazy out of body experience where my body didn't feel like my body but a whole galaxy with space fighters attacking each other. It was freaking Super Robot Taisen and each attack was a spark of pain. I could actually see the Gundam like fighters destroying ships as pain coursed through my body. I woke up in cold sweat thinking it was 6AM thinking I was half way through the night only to look at the clock and realize it was 12:30AM and nowhere near over my hallucinations. I went back to sleep going through other odd out of body experience hallucinations that I can't remember, but I knew I had fell asleep when I started dreaming. How did I know? Well, I thought I was in school and thought I missed my first day's of class and got really worried. For some strange reason, I was in a room that was about to hold an Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 tournament and I saw one of my friends from high school there. I asked him about my classes and he looked straight at me and said "don't worry, you're most likely in a dream". I thought about it and realize "OH YEAH, I GRADUATED A LONG TIME AGO!" I said thanks to him, finding comfort that I wasn't in school and did the first thing that came to mind whenever I know I'm dreaming: I ran out the door and started flying. Usually when I take control over my dreams and start flying, I start losing control and lose the ability to fly; however, I was able to maintain the ability to fly and flew higher than I have ever tried. It felt very relaxing and comforting. By a certain point, I landed and tried to see if I could do other stuff in my dreams. I tried running fast but I was running slow. I tried teleporting and I ended up a few feet from the door I ran out of and was standing on top of a lake. I walk back into that room and everyone was packing up from the MvC3 tournament. Everything past that was kind of a blur. I kind of remember being in a super market at one point in my dream. I get really vivid dreams, and so I'll be able to retell a lot that happened in my sleep. Fourth day was just painful and full of suffering. My allergies had hit its peak and I was having all the allergic reactions all over again. I couldn't really do anything the whole day, though I tried to play some games and listen to music. I had a huge headache that just didn't allow me to think or stay awake any longer. I took some painkillers again and allergy spray and went to sleep at 10PM only to spend the next hour going to the bathroom 8 times because of the amount of water I had been drinking that day (around 5-7 bottles). I finally fell asleep and woke up at 1:20AM feeling disorientated with a slight headache rather than a huge one. I couldn't fall back asleep. I was tossing and turning as water kept flowing out of my left eye, I continued to cough, and my headache was a nagging pain. I didn't fall back asleep until around 5AM. Today is day 5 and I think I'm finally recovering with minor problems still lingering. I still have a bit of water welling up around my eyes with my nose and head feeling congested. I'm still coughing and sneezing, but it's not as bad as the past 4 days. Breathing is a bit difficult as a lot of mucus is blocking my esophagus, but I've been coughing it up all day. I think the problem that bothers me the most is the headache. It's really hard to stay conscious and think when a headache starts to pulsate and grow bigger and bigger. I don't know if I'll be able to stay up tonight as I'm starting to get another headache. I think I need more rest and will probably end up going to sleep at 10PM again tonight. This is quite the change from my usual 3-4AM sleep schedule.
Aside from my usual League of Legends and Diablo 3 with my friends, I managed to complete Devil May Cry 4 on PS3 which I really enjoyed despite the amount of yelling and anger I put out from playing it (just like Ninja Gaiden Sigma). After finishing the game, I wasn't sure what I wanted to tackle next. I started working on Sonic the Hedgehog again and understand more and more why everyone hated the game so much. I now dub Sonic the Hedgehog on PS3 the worst PS3 game I have ever played replacing Golden Axe: Beast Rider. Such irony and such shame that both games are published by Sega. I've tried out the 2 Wii games I got: Masamune and Sin & Punishment and both are pretty fun. I haven't touched any of the new PS3 games I got as I'm working on finishing up more of the ones I've started. I've tried out all the 3DS games and completed Shinobi out of them. It's not as memorable as the originals, but it was certainly fun (and very difficult). The game I'm spending the most time on is Heroes of Ruin. It's really fun having a dungeon crawler on the go and killing stuff to find better loot. They should expand the max gold amount though, because I maxed out at 99,999 which isn't that much. I'm trying my best to ignore all new games and work on my current ones. I'm actually one game away from beating last year's record of completed games of 67. I was kind of hoping to reach 100 by this year, but it really depends on what games I play and most of them are RPGs.
That's it for now, I should probably get some more rest and try to recover from this illness.
Update (10-19-12):
Last night was pretty bad too. I had a slight headache and so I ended up staying up till 12AM. After eating some vitamins and cough medicine, brushing my teeth and drying my hair, it was already 1AM. Unfortunately, I couldn't fall asleep. Besides just lying there and feeling restless, I kept coughing up mucus when I couldn't breathe which made it even harder to fall asleep. I eventually fell asleep around 6AM and woke up at 12PM with only 6 hours of sleep. I'm not sure if I'll be able to fall asleep tonight, even with the shortage on sleep from last night. I've been coughing all day today, so I imagine it might bother me tonight. My allergies are mostly in check, though I feel a bit of it between my nose and eyes being somewhat itchy.
I also forgot to mention that I'm one episode away from finishing Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) season 2. I now understand why so many people don't like it. Besides the shenanigans of 8 episodes retelling the same day, the entire season is a lot more darker and makes the viewer angry. The first season was so different. It was so other worldly and spontaneous with Haruhi causing mischief making the viewer laugh, get excited, and love the characters. The opening of season 1 was so fun and catchy, and it was called "Bouken Desho Desho" (Adventure, right? Right?). Season 1 really was quite an adventure with fighting, crazy scenarios, and a lot of humor. But Season 2 feels almost plain, or more like a sad drama. Even the opening made it feel like a typical opening for a plain animé. It's a real shame, but I'll still go through with finishing the last episode sometime soon.
You can download it here: http://biasedvideogamerblog.com/blog:trail-blazer-pc
I'm really not used to Western-themed music, so it was quite a challenge composing the songs with that sort of flavor. I tried out the game and it's pretty challenging. It's a pretty good desktop game to pass the time. So right after finishing up Trail Blazer, I immediately put all my energy into working on one last song for Camera Obscura. It's for a chase scene and is the final level of the game, so I was asked to make it as epic as possible. So threw on layers upon layers of octaves, lots of uplifting strings, horns, and vocals, and the most dramatic and dissonant chord strikes at the end of the song should the player get the bad ending. The third week was actually pretty relaxing as I tweaked and worked with the volume and balance of the song. The team really liked it and would like me to work on an extended version of it which I suppose I'll do in the near future. I can't really share it right now as I want it to be kept under wraps until we can get it more polished before showing it to the public. This fourth week though, has been miserable.
I'm guessing that I got whatever bug my father had last week and Sunday morning, I started coughing and getting symptoms of illness. So the first night, I just took some cough medicine and went to sleep with little to no problem. The next day, I had a sore throat, I started coughing more often, and my body started to hurt everywhere. It felt like my coughing wasn't as serious the 2nd day, so I decided to skip on the cough medicine as I suspected it was the thing that made my body hurt all over and just took a painkiller for my headache from all the coughing I had. I could barely sleep that night. I was up all night coughing and tossing about. The 3rd day is when everything started crashing down on me. My illness started to fade and I felt pretty good the next morning, but something hit me hard by the afternoon. Whenever I get sick, there's a chance that my hay fever will react and give me some bad allergic reactions. And so it happened: I started sneezing, coughing and having watery eyes, stuffy nose, runny nose, body aches and a really bad headache. It was so painful and unbearable that I couldn't even relax. I couldn't play games, I couldn't watch videos, and I could barely stand to listen to music. I decided to go to sleep at 10PM that third night. I took a stronger cough medicine and had the craziest mind trip ever. It's not the first time I hallucinated through my sleep while being sick, but it's always an odd experience each time I have it. Right from the beginning of sleep, I was shaking violently of coldness and I knew my whole body would be in severe pain if I let it continue. So I had 4 layers of blankets cover me that night just so I wouldn't move around as much and keep the heat within my body. In just the first 2.5 hours of sleep, I had one crazy out of body experience where my body didn't feel like my body but a whole galaxy with space fighters attacking each other. It was freaking Super Robot Taisen and each attack was a spark of pain. I could actually see the Gundam like fighters destroying ships as pain coursed through my body. I woke up in cold sweat thinking it was 6AM thinking I was half way through the night only to look at the clock and realize it was 12:30AM and nowhere near over my hallucinations. I went back to sleep going through other odd out of body experience hallucinations that I can't remember, but I knew I had fell asleep when I started dreaming. How did I know? Well, I thought I was in school and thought I missed my first day's of class and got really worried. For some strange reason, I was in a room that was about to hold an Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 tournament and I saw one of my friends from high school there. I asked him about my classes and he looked straight at me and said "don't worry, you're most likely in a dream". I thought about it and realize "OH YEAH, I GRADUATED A LONG TIME AGO!" I said thanks to him, finding comfort that I wasn't in school and did the first thing that came to mind whenever I know I'm dreaming: I ran out the door and started flying. Usually when I take control over my dreams and start flying, I start losing control and lose the ability to fly; however, I was able to maintain the ability to fly and flew higher than I have ever tried. It felt very relaxing and comforting. By a certain point, I landed and tried to see if I could do other stuff in my dreams. I tried running fast but I was running slow. I tried teleporting and I ended up a few feet from the door I ran out of and was standing on top of a lake. I walk back into that room and everyone was packing up from the MvC3 tournament. Everything past that was kind of a blur. I kind of remember being in a super market at one point in my dream. I get really vivid dreams, and so I'll be able to retell a lot that happened in my sleep. Fourth day was just painful and full of suffering. My allergies had hit its peak and I was having all the allergic reactions all over again. I couldn't really do anything the whole day, though I tried to play some games and listen to music. I had a huge headache that just didn't allow me to think or stay awake any longer. I took some painkillers again and allergy spray and went to sleep at 10PM only to spend the next hour going to the bathroom 8 times because of the amount of water I had been drinking that day (around 5-7 bottles). I finally fell asleep and woke up at 1:20AM feeling disorientated with a slight headache rather than a huge one. I couldn't fall back asleep. I was tossing and turning as water kept flowing out of my left eye, I continued to cough, and my headache was a nagging pain. I didn't fall back asleep until around 5AM. Today is day 5 and I think I'm finally recovering with minor problems still lingering. I still have a bit of water welling up around my eyes with my nose and head feeling congested. I'm still coughing and sneezing, but it's not as bad as the past 4 days. Breathing is a bit difficult as a lot of mucus is blocking my esophagus, but I've been coughing it up all day. I think the problem that bothers me the most is the headache. It's really hard to stay conscious and think when a headache starts to pulsate and grow bigger and bigger. I don't know if I'll be able to stay up tonight as I'm starting to get another headache. I think I need more rest and will probably end up going to sleep at 10PM again tonight. This is quite the change from my usual 3-4AM sleep schedule.
Aside from my usual League of Legends and Diablo 3 with my friends, I managed to complete Devil May Cry 4 on PS3 which I really enjoyed despite the amount of yelling and anger I put out from playing it (just like Ninja Gaiden Sigma). After finishing the game, I wasn't sure what I wanted to tackle next. I started working on Sonic the Hedgehog again and understand more and more why everyone hated the game so much. I now dub Sonic the Hedgehog on PS3 the worst PS3 game I have ever played replacing Golden Axe: Beast Rider. Such irony and such shame that both games are published by Sega. I've tried out the 2 Wii games I got: Masamune and Sin & Punishment and both are pretty fun. I haven't touched any of the new PS3 games I got as I'm working on finishing up more of the ones I've started. I've tried out all the 3DS games and completed Shinobi out of them. It's not as memorable as the originals, but it was certainly fun (and very difficult). The game I'm spending the most time on is Heroes of Ruin. It's really fun having a dungeon crawler on the go and killing stuff to find better loot. They should expand the max gold amount though, because I maxed out at 99,999 which isn't that much. I'm trying my best to ignore all new games and work on my current ones. I'm actually one game away from beating last year's record of completed games of 67. I was kind of hoping to reach 100 by this year, but it really depends on what games I play and most of them are RPGs.
That's it for now, I should probably get some more rest and try to recover from this illness.
Update (10-19-12):
Last night was pretty bad too. I had a slight headache and so I ended up staying up till 12AM. After eating some vitamins and cough medicine, brushing my teeth and drying my hair, it was already 1AM. Unfortunately, I couldn't fall asleep. Besides just lying there and feeling restless, I kept coughing up mucus when I couldn't breathe which made it even harder to fall asleep. I eventually fell asleep around 6AM and woke up at 12PM with only 6 hours of sleep. I'm not sure if I'll be able to fall asleep tonight, even with the shortage on sleep from last night. I've been coughing all day today, so I imagine it might bother me tonight. My allergies are mostly in check, though I feel a bit of it between my nose and eyes being somewhat itchy.
I also forgot to mention that I'm one episode away from finishing Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) season 2. I now understand why so many people don't like it. Besides the shenanigans of 8 episodes retelling the same day, the entire season is a lot more darker and makes the viewer angry. The first season was so different. It was so other worldly and spontaneous with Haruhi causing mischief making the viewer laugh, get excited, and love the characters. The opening of season 1 was so fun and catchy, and it was called "Bouken Desho Desho" (Adventure, right? Right?). Season 1 really was quite an adventure with fighting, crazy scenarios, and a lot of humor. But Season 2 feels almost plain, or more like a sad drama. Even the opening made it feel like a typical opening for a plain animé. It's a real shame, but I'll still go through with finishing the last episode sometime soon.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Working hard, playing freaking harder!
This past month has been pretty great. For starters, I bought a new laptop that was even cheaper than my last laptop (around the same price actually) but has the power to turn up the settings to max on every game I have and still run pretty smoothly. I don't think anyone can really understand what a huge deal this was for me playing PC games other than those who have had a similar experience. I wanted to get through more of my PC games, but there were too many distractions. First, there was the release of Guild Wars 2 which turned out to be incredibly fun.
Sadly, my friend that got me into Guild Wars 2 got bored of it really quick. Because of that, we started playing Diablo 3 again because of the addition of Paragon levels. And then Borderlands 2 came out this past Tuesday which attracted quite a few of my friends and so we've been playing that the past week. Then last Tuesday, I bought a Nintendo 3DS XL. On that same day, I ordered a bunch of items on Amazon as the new law states that it requires the online retailer to start charging customers sales tax which took effect last Saturday. I had bought 5 PS3 games, 2 Wii Games, 4 3DS games, a new mouse (Razer Deathadder), a new headset that can be used on PC and PS3, and a HDMI cable to connect my previous laptop to my big-screen TV. Most of my items came in just this morning and I'm using the new mouse right now! (My logitech mouse has sadly started giving out in movement and clicking. Diablo 2 & 3 probably ruined it). There's another problem to this case: work.
So two of the projects I'm working on are getting done rather quickly now, and both teams suddenly want things completed now. This has put me in a strain against time these past two weeks. I'm going to have to work this weekend as well to ensure I get things done. I'm happy to be working on music again. It feels like it's been a while since I've given much attention to music when I've been working on SFX for so long. I said I would draw more this year, but so far, I've got one piece of work done. That is freaking sad.
I wanted to get back into watching animé and decided to go back to Crunchyroll to finish up Hokuto no Ken only to find out that it's not there anymore. Why Crunchyroll? Why do you keep putting things up I like and then taking them down? Well, I know the answer to that (licensing and contracts with publishers), but it still makes me sad that I didn't finish the series. On the bright side, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya season 2 is available on CR. I was warned by a lot of friends that it was a terrible show for season 2 as 8 of the episodes were repeated. I took heed to that warning and still watched it anyways. It was sorta painful watching the same scenario unravel 8 times, but I think it made the last episode for that little arc worth it. It's not something I'd want to watch again anytime soon. I still have about 3 more episodes of the season left, so I'm hoping there's still something I'll enjoy about it in the end.
It's really hard to find Videogame music now. Games sometimes do have soundtracks for sale, but they'll be overseas, sold for an insane amount online, or very limited in special collections. After a bit of hunting, I was able to find a few soundtracks. There was one I just couldn't find at all though. I had bought Centipede: Infestation for the Nintendo 3DS and completed the game with no interest in playing the game again. The game mostly boring with a few interesting boss battles (it's an arena top-down shooter), but what really got me playing the game till the end was the music. The composer is Jake Kaufman who I've took notice to after his work on Contra 4. The music in the game has a strong influence of Electronic, Drum 'n Bass, and Dubstep that made it unique. What I eventually did was hook up my 3DS to my laptop and recorded all the song from the "Jukebox" selection of the game. I think the true prize of Videogame music this past month was purchasing the Humble Indie Bundle 6 this week. I had 3 of the games listed already, but I really wanted a game called "Dustforce" after watching some gameplay of it from launch and from hearing about from my friend. The bundle included the soundtracks to all the games. I played Dustforce the night I bought it and really liked the game. The controls were really tricky in the beginning (well, they still are), but the game flows really well when you know what you're doing. What I didn't expect was how amazing the music was going to be. I've been listening to the soundtrack all week.
I just can't stop listening to it. Not only does it supplement the gameplay, but it's so chill and makes you feel so good.
I'm going to try my very best to hold back on any other game purchases (other than crazy steam deals) until I can go through some of my previously bought games. I feel like I'm going to be playing some of them for a very long time. I dread the thought of having to work right now and the rest of the month, but I'll enjoy each night that I find time to play some games. (Literally over 100+ games waiting to be played).
Sadly, my friend that got me into Guild Wars 2 got bored of it really quick. Because of that, we started playing Diablo 3 again because of the addition of Paragon levels. And then Borderlands 2 came out this past Tuesday which attracted quite a few of my friends and so we've been playing that the past week. Then last Tuesday, I bought a Nintendo 3DS XL. On that same day, I ordered a bunch of items on Amazon as the new law states that it requires the online retailer to start charging customers sales tax which took effect last Saturday. I had bought 5 PS3 games, 2 Wii Games, 4 3DS games, a new mouse (Razer Deathadder), a new headset that can be used on PC and PS3, and a HDMI cable to connect my previous laptop to my big-screen TV. Most of my items came in just this morning and I'm using the new mouse right now! (My logitech mouse has sadly started giving out in movement and clicking. Diablo 2 & 3 probably ruined it). There's another problem to this case: work.
So two of the projects I'm working on are getting done rather quickly now, and both teams suddenly want things completed now. This has put me in a strain against time these past two weeks. I'm going to have to work this weekend as well to ensure I get things done. I'm happy to be working on music again. It feels like it's been a while since I've given much attention to music when I've been working on SFX for so long. I said I would draw more this year, but so far, I've got one piece of work done. That is freaking sad.
I wanted to get back into watching animé and decided to go back to Crunchyroll to finish up Hokuto no Ken only to find out that it's not there anymore. Why Crunchyroll? Why do you keep putting things up I like and then taking them down? Well, I know the answer to that (licensing and contracts with publishers), but it still makes me sad that I didn't finish the series. On the bright side, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya season 2 is available on CR. I was warned by a lot of friends that it was a terrible show for season 2 as 8 of the episodes were repeated. I took heed to that warning and still watched it anyways. It was sorta painful watching the same scenario unravel 8 times, but I think it made the last episode for that little arc worth it. It's not something I'd want to watch again anytime soon. I still have about 3 more episodes of the season left, so I'm hoping there's still something I'll enjoy about it in the end.
It's really hard to find Videogame music now. Games sometimes do have soundtracks for sale, but they'll be overseas, sold for an insane amount online, or very limited in special collections. After a bit of hunting, I was able to find a few soundtracks. There was one I just couldn't find at all though. I had bought Centipede: Infestation for the Nintendo 3DS and completed the game with no interest in playing the game again. The game mostly boring with a few interesting boss battles (it's an arena top-down shooter), but what really got me playing the game till the end was the music. The composer is Jake Kaufman who I've took notice to after his work on Contra 4. The music in the game has a strong influence of Electronic, Drum 'n Bass, and Dubstep that made it unique. What I eventually did was hook up my 3DS to my laptop and recorded all the song from the "Jukebox" selection of the game. I think the true prize of Videogame music this past month was purchasing the Humble Indie Bundle 6 this week. I had 3 of the games listed already, but I really wanted a game called "Dustforce" after watching some gameplay of it from launch and from hearing about from my friend. The bundle included the soundtracks to all the games. I played Dustforce the night I bought it and really liked the game. The controls were really tricky in the beginning (well, they still are), but the game flows really well when you know what you're doing. What I didn't expect was how amazing the music was going to be. I've been listening to the soundtrack all week.
I just can't stop listening to it. Not only does it supplement the gameplay, but it's so chill and makes you feel so good.
I'm going to try my very best to hold back on any other game purchases (other than crazy steam deals) until I can go through some of my previously bought games. I feel like I'm going to be playing some of them for a very long time. I dread the thought of having to work right now and the rest of the month, but I'll enjoy each night that I find time to play some games. (Literally over 100+ games waiting to be played).
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Plenty of games, not enough time
So the Steam Summer Sales finally did roll around and I ended up buying 31 games. I've only played about 12 of the games I've bought so far as I'm trying to burn through some of my older games first. Then after the Steam Summer Sales, Amazon had an incredible deal I couldn't refuse: Final Fantasy XIII-2 for $15. With free shipping offered to a purchase of over $25, I bought Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce as well. Between then and now, I've gotten a new gaming laptop, bought Binary Domain for PC, Pre-purchased Guild Wars 2, and bought Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
It's a vicious turnabout knowing I have the means to buy the games I want now but not enough time in the day to play through so many of them as it used to be the reverse when I was in school. Still, I put in a good amount of time into gaming ever since I got my new laptop. I've been staying up till 3-4AM every night this past week trying out all the games I had before and turning them to the max settings. I still end up playing a lot of League of Legends everyday since a lot of my friends play it; however, I've been making an effort to play other games such as DotA 2, Team Fortress 2, and Vindictus. I mainly want to burn through some of my older games such as the F.E.A.R. DLCs, Red Faction Guerrilla, and Assassin's Creed so I can start playing some of the other games I bought such as Ys: Origins, FarCry 2, and Sonic Generations.
I've actually gotten a bit more productive once again when I re-established contact with the two teams I was working with. So I'm still working on sound effects on one team while working on music with the other. Both games are practically completed and are being refined at the moment. As for my personal projects, I haven't touched anything for a while and haven't really found the time to work or finish them as I'm working with the two teams during the day and playing games with friends at night.
I finished Acchi Kocchi's first season and I'm really hoping for second season to be created.
It was such a cute and hilarious show! I was a bit sad when I finished it though. I wanted more cuteness like that! I want to continue watching animé to take a break from constantly working and constantly playing games, so I'm considering of getting back in Hokuto no Ken and finishing it. Still, I'd really like to find more animé like Acchi Kocchi that makes me laugh and feel happy after watching it.
August is breezing by rather quickly, and so I should really get work done and land a job sometime early next year. If not, I really might have to considering taking classes again and going back to school. I don't want to go back...
It's a vicious turnabout knowing I have the means to buy the games I want now but not enough time in the day to play through so many of them as it used to be the reverse when I was in school. Still, I put in a good amount of time into gaming ever since I got my new laptop. I've been staying up till 3-4AM every night this past week trying out all the games I had before and turning them to the max settings. I still end up playing a lot of League of Legends everyday since a lot of my friends play it; however, I've been making an effort to play other games such as DotA 2, Team Fortress 2, and Vindictus. I mainly want to burn through some of my older games such as the F.E.A.R. DLCs, Red Faction Guerrilla, and Assassin's Creed so I can start playing some of the other games I bought such as Ys: Origins, FarCry 2, and Sonic Generations.
I've actually gotten a bit more productive once again when I re-established contact with the two teams I was working with. So I'm still working on sound effects on one team while working on music with the other. Both games are practically completed and are being refined at the moment. As for my personal projects, I haven't touched anything for a while and haven't really found the time to work or finish them as I'm working with the two teams during the day and playing games with friends at night.
I finished Acchi Kocchi's first season and I'm really hoping for second season to be created.
It was such a cute and hilarious show! I was a bit sad when I finished it though. I wanted more cuteness like that! I want to continue watching animé to take a break from constantly working and constantly playing games, so I'm considering of getting back in Hokuto no Ken and finishing it. Still, I'd really like to find more animé like Acchi Kocchi that makes me laugh and feel happy after watching it.
August is breezing by rather quickly, and so I should really get work done and land a job sometime early next year. If not, I really might have to considering taking classes again and going back to school. I don't want to go back...
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Kicking back and looking forward
Aside from my daily writing, I haven't done any work whatsoever ever since my sister came back from graduating. She's back in Southern California now, but for the past 3 weeks I've been mostly playing League of Legends, Playstation 3, and such with her and my friends online. My Birthday hangout this year went alright. I was able to get 3 friends together and play the downloadable games on my Playstation 3 and then gather 2 more friends online to play Left 4 Dead 2 and Counter-Strike: Source. I also had my first Birthday Cake Shot which is half Hazelnut Liqueur and half Vodka (tasted pretty good).
This weekend, a friend gave me a beta key to Hi-Rez Studio's new Action MOBA "SMITE" which is essentially DotA in a 3rd-Person Perspective played like an Action Game.
Source: Youtube Channel smitegame
It's a fun game. It feels pretty balanced, though lacking in content because it's currently limited to 5 characters in the beginning out of the 18 available.
Although I've been playing a lot of League of Legends, I still have a love/hate relationship with it. The fun part of the game comes from the contingency, spontaneous moments, and team work that's required to win. The problem is that playing alongside with random pubs (public members of the game) can be some of the worst experience you'll have to face when things go wrong. Much like the people on the internet, League of Legends is filled with trolls, immaturity, elitist, whiners, ragers, and everything in-between. There are too many instances where players feel above all others and are obligated to treat everyone like trash. It doesn't matter how good of a player you are if you can't even stick with the team and work with them. The most fun I've had with League of Legends are with and against friends where everyone knows each other and can have good clean fun without someone throwing a fit and spamming the chat box. It's because of the random pubs I've had to deal with that I've been staying away from LoL more often nowadays.
I've started Vanquish on PS3 (finally) even though I haven't finished Ninja Gaiden Sigma or Devil May Cry 4 (which I had planned on finishing before starting another Action game). Vanquish is what I expected it to be, though it's a bit more challenging than I had anticipated. I also got Dragon's Dogma for PS3 in the mail 4 days ago and tried a bit of it. I really like the combat mechanics and the pawn system is pretty interesting too. I have to admit from a lot of the critic reviews that the pawns are a little too chatty though. It's fine during combat since they actually give out cues and some helpful information, but they talk unnecessarily a lot during exploration and in town. My sister got Theatrhythm Final Fantasy for the 3DS and I played a few songs on it. It's an obvious lure to long time Final Fantasy fans who've played the games since the first one on the NES; however, I still found the game to be quite engaging and entertaining.
Two games had announcements that caught my attention. Guild Wars 2 is finally nearing its launch on August 28th and I'm especially excited to play it since I haven't had a chance to try it out. Just today, Phantasy Star Online 2 was announced for a Western release! So now have two games to look forward to playing!
Steam Summer Sales have been the hot topic on the internet for PC players the past month, and it still hasn't happened yet. The wait is seriously driving me nuts as I've been waiting for the past 3 weeks thinking it's going to happen to no avail. I'm hoping that it's next week, but I've been saying that for the past month. I can only hope.
I don't think I mentioned it in last month's post, or maybe I haven't found it yet, but I ran into a new animé series I've never heard of before and instantly fell in love with it.
Acchi Kocchi is a Slice-of-life, Romantic Comedy with a lot of artistic choices that's similar to Kyoto Animation and their work (but it's not them). The girl (Tsumiki) likes Io, but is always too shy to admit it. Io, who's oblivious to Tsumiki's feelings for him, supposedly likes her too but doesn't show it too prominently enough for her to know for certain. This creates the premise of the story where each day their friends try to do extreme things to get the two together. It's very much part of today's moé style animé and probably interest a very specific audience. I haven't been very good with keeping up with Animé in the past 4 years ever since I've graduated, but Acchi Kocchi definitely makes me want to get back into it.
Aside from all the play I've been doing, I'm hoping to get back on track and work on music, art, exercising, writing, job hunting and game making. But if Steam Summer Sales really is next week, I might be playing a bit longer...
This weekend, a friend gave me a beta key to Hi-Rez Studio's new Action MOBA "SMITE" which is essentially DotA in a 3rd-Person Perspective played like an Action Game.
Source: Youtube Channel smitegame
It's a fun game. It feels pretty balanced, though lacking in content because it's currently limited to 5 characters in the beginning out of the 18 available.
Although I've been playing a lot of League of Legends, I still have a love/hate relationship with it. The fun part of the game comes from the contingency, spontaneous moments, and team work that's required to win. The problem is that playing alongside with random pubs (public members of the game) can be some of the worst experience you'll have to face when things go wrong. Much like the people on the internet, League of Legends is filled with trolls, immaturity, elitist, whiners, ragers, and everything in-between. There are too many instances where players feel above all others and are obligated to treat everyone like trash. It doesn't matter how good of a player you are if you can't even stick with the team and work with them. The most fun I've had with League of Legends are with and against friends where everyone knows each other and can have good clean fun without someone throwing a fit and spamming the chat box. It's because of the random pubs I've had to deal with that I've been staying away from LoL more often nowadays.
I've started Vanquish on PS3 (finally) even though I haven't finished Ninja Gaiden Sigma or Devil May Cry 4 (which I had planned on finishing before starting another Action game). Vanquish is what I expected it to be, though it's a bit more challenging than I had anticipated. I also got Dragon's Dogma for PS3 in the mail 4 days ago and tried a bit of it. I really like the combat mechanics and the pawn system is pretty interesting too. I have to admit from a lot of the critic reviews that the pawns are a little too chatty though. It's fine during combat since they actually give out cues and some helpful information, but they talk unnecessarily a lot during exploration and in town. My sister got Theatrhythm Final Fantasy for the 3DS and I played a few songs on it. It's an obvious lure to long time Final Fantasy fans who've played the games since the first one on the NES; however, I still found the game to be quite engaging and entertaining.
Two games had announcements that caught my attention. Guild Wars 2 is finally nearing its launch on August 28th and I'm especially excited to play it since I haven't had a chance to try it out. Just today, Phantasy Star Online 2 was announced for a Western release! So now have two games to look forward to playing!
Steam Summer Sales have been the hot topic on the internet for PC players the past month, and it still hasn't happened yet. The wait is seriously driving me nuts as I've been waiting for the past 3 weeks thinking it's going to happen to no avail. I'm hoping that it's next week, but I've been saying that for the past month. I can only hope.
I don't think I mentioned it in last month's post, or maybe I haven't found it yet, but I ran into a new animé series I've never heard of before and instantly fell in love with it.
Acchi Kocchi is a Slice-of-life, Romantic Comedy with a lot of artistic choices that's similar to Kyoto Animation and their work (but it's not them). The girl (Tsumiki) likes Io, but is always too shy to admit it. Io, who's oblivious to Tsumiki's feelings for him, supposedly likes her too but doesn't show it too prominently enough for her to know for certain. This creates the premise of the story where each day their friends try to do extreme things to get the two together. It's very much part of today's moé style animé and probably interest a very specific audience. I haven't been very good with keeping up with Animé in the past 4 years ever since I've graduated, but Acchi Kocchi definitely makes me want to get back into it.
Aside from all the play I've been doing, I'm hoping to get back on track and work on music, art, exercising, writing, job hunting and game making. But if Steam Summer Sales really is next week, I might be playing a bit longer...
Monday, June 18, 2012
Welcome back summer
Summer doesn't officially start until 2 days later, but with all the kiddies out of school and my friends graduating, it pretty much feels like summer has begun. I'd love to kick back and relax like I usually do for Summer and be reminded of all the great memories I've had in the past Summers, but I think I have to work equally hard to get anywhere this year.
What a weekend I just had...Word of advice: never eat junk food all in one day. Just this past Friday, I set course to Los Angeles to watch the graduation ceremony for my sister (I'm so proud of her). On Friday, I ate a dog in a blanket (a hotdog covered all the way around), a Cheeseburger and fries from Wendy's, something called a hearty bowl from Jack in the Box on the way down to L.A. and by dinner, I wanted to get a salad at BJ's brewhouse but was tempted to get a chili-cheese hamburger. That night, I felt throbbing pain from my stomach and tried my best to ignore and hoped that I would feel better by morning. The next day, I still felt sick and ended up throwing up in the bathroom during my sister's reception. I felt conscious enough to watch my sister's graduation ceremony and take lots of pictures for her afterwards. So throughout the rest of the trip, I felt sick, broken and tired. I got the chance to meet up with friends from Irvine which I was really happy about. When we finally departed to return home last night, it took us nearly 8 hours to get back when it generally takes 6 hours. I still feel tired and somewhat in pain right now...
I've been getting really lazy, which I believe I mentioned before. I haven't gotten new instructions for sound effects yet so I'm just waiting. For the other project I was supposed to do music for, I think I've come to the decision to not continue it. It's not really helping that much more than what I was doing before and I think I should really take the time this summer and gather my stuff to create a portfolio (finally). I really need to start advertising to the industry and show that I could be very valuable to a serious gaming project. I also want to push forward on the things I want to focus on (and have always wanted to work on since jr. high/high school) and start creating those games and producing those videogame music remixes.
Besides Diablo 3 and League of Legends, I don't really feel like I've played much anything else. I've been playing "From the Abyss" on the DS and I'm finding it quite entertaining, even if it's a bit lacking in content and dynamics. I guess I'm still working on my backlog of games, with one of the main focus on PC being FarCry 1. The game was really fun in the beginning, but it got to a point really early in the story where everything kills you in one hit or quickly which results in having to start over from the last check point (no creating save points). It's become really frustrating and very much a study game as I find out some of the poor design choices that were implemented into the game. I'm surprised at how highly regarded this game is/was seeing how I'm having very little fun from it anymore. I heard FarCry 2 is significantly better and I can wait to complete 1 so I can move onto 2. This summer seems kind of boring in terms of new releases of games; however, I think I'll be saved by an upcoming Steam Summer Sales. I know there's a ton of games I haven't played yet and I think it's going to grow a bit more after the Summer sale ends. I can't believe that Cherry Tree High Comedy Club isn't out on Steam yet. That was one game I was highly anticipating to release on Steam so I can get it during the Summer Steam Sales, but there still hasn't been any word on when it will come out. I know I'm going to spend quite a bit on this year's sales. There's a lot of games I'm looking forward to getting that I didn't before because of it's higher retail price and because of my backlog. I haven't really lightened the load on my backlog all that much, but I feel ready to get more games nonetheless. One of the games I'm hoping to get a good deal on is Fortune Summoners:
This video was recorded and uploaded by a friend. It has a sort of Castlevania-ish feeling to it and is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in it. I've finally delved quite deep back into RPGs now, but I've still been getting and playing a LOT of FPS. It's like I can't get away from shooters (the industry feels the same). So I think a change in pace with games like Fortune Summoners can help me take a break from the sheer amount of FPS and RPGs I've been playing.
To be honest, I'm a little scared about this summer. I really want to work hard and finally get my foot into the game industry by the end of this year, but I also want to be able to enjoy my Summer like I usually do. I should never focus entirely on work. I've done that too many times in my life and ended with regret. I need to find that balance between productivity and play to survive this summer and year.
What a weekend I just had...Word of advice: never eat junk food all in one day. Just this past Friday, I set course to Los Angeles to watch the graduation ceremony for my sister (I'm so proud of her). On Friday, I ate a dog in a blanket (a hotdog covered all the way around), a Cheeseburger and fries from Wendy's, something called a hearty bowl from Jack in the Box on the way down to L.A. and by dinner, I wanted to get a salad at BJ's brewhouse but was tempted to get a chili-cheese hamburger. That night, I felt throbbing pain from my stomach and tried my best to ignore and hoped that I would feel better by morning. The next day, I still felt sick and ended up throwing up in the bathroom during my sister's reception. I felt conscious enough to watch my sister's graduation ceremony and take lots of pictures for her afterwards. So throughout the rest of the trip, I felt sick, broken and tired. I got the chance to meet up with friends from Irvine which I was really happy about. When we finally departed to return home last night, it took us nearly 8 hours to get back when it generally takes 6 hours. I still feel tired and somewhat in pain right now...
I've been getting really lazy, which I believe I mentioned before. I haven't gotten new instructions for sound effects yet so I'm just waiting. For the other project I was supposed to do music for, I think I've come to the decision to not continue it. It's not really helping that much more than what I was doing before and I think I should really take the time this summer and gather my stuff to create a portfolio (finally). I really need to start advertising to the industry and show that I could be very valuable to a serious gaming project. I also want to push forward on the things I want to focus on (and have always wanted to work on since jr. high/high school) and start creating those games and producing those videogame music remixes.
Besides Diablo 3 and League of Legends, I don't really feel like I've played much anything else. I've been playing "From the Abyss" on the DS and I'm finding it quite entertaining, even if it's a bit lacking in content and dynamics. I guess I'm still working on my backlog of games, with one of the main focus on PC being FarCry 1. The game was really fun in the beginning, but it got to a point really early in the story where everything kills you in one hit or quickly which results in having to start over from the last check point (no creating save points). It's become really frustrating and very much a study game as I find out some of the poor design choices that were implemented into the game. I'm surprised at how highly regarded this game is/was seeing how I'm having very little fun from it anymore. I heard FarCry 2 is significantly better and I can wait to complete 1 so I can move onto 2. This summer seems kind of boring in terms of new releases of games; however, I think I'll be saved by an upcoming Steam Summer Sales. I know there's a ton of games I haven't played yet and I think it's going to grow a bit more after the Summer sale ends. I can't believe that Cherry Tree High Comedy Club isn't out on Steam yet. That was one game I was highly anticipating to release on Steam so I can get it during the Summer Steam Sales, but there still hasn't been any word on when it will come out. I know I'm going to spend quite a bit on this year's sales. There's a lot of games I'm looking forward to getting that I didn't before because of it's higher retail price and because of my backlog. I haven't really lightened the load on my backlog all that much, but I feel ready to get more games nonetheless. One of the games I'm hoping to get a good deal on is Fortune Summoners:
This video was recorded and uploaded by a friend. It has a sort of Castlevania-ish feeling to it and is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in it. I've finally delved quite deep back into RPGs now, but I've still been getting and playing a LOT of FPS. It's like I can't get away from shooters (the industry feels the same). So I think a change in pace with games like Fortune Summoners can help me take a break from the sheer amount of FPS and RPGs I've been playing.
To be honest, I'm a little scared about this summer. I really want to work hard and finally get my foot into the game industry by the end of this year, but I also want to be able to enjoy my Summer like I usually do. I should never focus entirely on work. I've done that too many times in my life and ended with regret. I need to find that balance between productivity and play to survive this summer and year.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Fighting the Lords of Hell
Diablo 3 was finally released on May 15th, and it was a very painful wait. Throughout the years, I had placed the thoughts of Diablo 3 in the back of my head and didn't give much care as I didn't want to get overly excited over a game that might not come out in years (or ever with cases like Starcraft Ghost). When Diablo 3 finally had a release date, I still tried to remain calm and did so until May 1st when I decided to pre-order it online. Ever since that day I pre-ordered it, all I could think about was Diablo 3. It's like all that crave and anticipation that was bottled up in the past 4-5 years suddenly started pouring out. Many players who bought the digital form or picked it up on Monday midnight of the launch couldn't log in the first few hours (I heard it was 5 hours) and many players were upset. My game left the pickup at 5AM Tuesday morning and I was hoping to get it in the afternoon. I waited the entire day and didn't receive till around 8-9PM, and even then I had to install and update it which took over an hour. When I finally started up the game, the graphics were so majorly messed up that I couldn't even play. May 15th, 2012 was one of the longest Tuesdays I've ever had. I finally figured out how to fix most of the graphics problems by uninstalling all the drivers off the laptop and re-updating it to the newest one. A lot of the graphics are actually still messed up, but at least it was playable.
Anyways, Diablo 3 has been eating a lot of energy away from me as I feel lazy and reluctant to work. I'm still getting my main priorities in check, but extra work has been ignored for the most part these past 2 weeks. I finally finished through Normal after all my friends maxed out at level 60 on their characters and got to Inferno already (There's 4 levels of difficulty for Diablo 3: Normal, Nightmare, Hell, Inferno) and just started playing Nightmare. My main is a Demon Hunter and I knew I was going to play one the second I saw the announcement trailer for that class. I've made a character for each class already and really enjoy the unique gameplay for each of the classes. I think I've gotten to a point where I feel okay making a review now, so I'll probably write it sometime soon.
Other than my daily posts on Superpad Unplugged, I've been called back to do some sound effects work for our upcoming game "Camera Obscura" set to launch on Steam. Sound effects is a difficult task to accomplish for the entertainment industry and I feel as if it might be even more challenging than doing music. It seems easier since sound effects last no longer than a few seconds, but getting it right seems to be much more difficult to achieve. I'm so close to finishing the Street Fighter Mix, but I've been so lazy about completing it that it still sit there as incomplete. I revisited an older project I had: Mach Rider Remix, and started thinking of a different way to mix it. I was going to make it sound more rockish, but I think I might go more electro with it. I'm working on so many music projects that I'm starting to feel limited in the resources I have. I really don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to buy new VSTs and programs if I'm not consistently making money at the moment. I feel like I could be doing a lot more productive work, but I can never get into the work mood after the main priorities have been completed.
So I finally completed some games, one of them being E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy for PC. It's a FPS/RPG open-world Action-game, and everything about it sounded really cool in the description and videos. After getting through the game, I felt like I didn't even experience 10% of what I saw in the videos or what was described on the game page. It was a painful playthrough of figuring out how the game worked with its terrible menu interface, convoluted game mechanics, and poorly designed combat. It crashed a lot, had a ton of glitches, and the story wasn't interesting at all. I have to praise its graphics and environment though. It was very atmospheric and immersive. The other game I finished was Samurai Warriors Katana for Wii (about time). I had this game forever, but I just didn't have the patience to sit down and play through it. It's an arcade, gun-rail like action game. There were a lot of parts I liked in the game where I'm just slashing at enemies and shooting them from afar. The problem is that out of the 8 weapons the player can choose from, only two were really useful: the spear the identified weak points and the musket which didn't require reloading. There were quite a few "mini-games" between the action that made it less than entertaining but rather more infuriating. There were 4 main campaign stories and once I finished the last one a 5th one appeared but wasn't playable unless I cleared all the previous mission with a certain score. It was semi-entertaining, but not enough for me to play through the whole game again and so I declared that I finished the game from there.
Dragon's Dogma finally released:
I'm still holding off on buying the game yet, but I really want it. I was worried when I saw a lot of negative reviews on it a day before it launched by critics. The average score has picked up and is in the green once again, so that has restored a bit of faith in the game for me. I hear there's day one content for it already, and so Capcom's shenanigans seems to still ensue. In the meantime, Diablo 3 is keeping me pretty well occupied as I try to get through some of my other games on the side when I'm not playing it. I already seemed very lax enough at the moment, yet I'm hoping to have a peaceful and enjoyable summer this year as I continue to get through some of my work and climb through some of my backlog.
Anyways, Diablo 3 has been eating a lot of energy away from me as I feel lazy and reluctant to work. I'm still getting my main priorities in check, but extra work has been ignored for the most part these past 2 weeks. I finally finished through Normal after all my friends maxed out at level 60 on their characters and got to Inferno already (There's 4 levels of difficulty for Diablo 3: Normal, Nightmare, Hell, Inferno) and just started playing Nightmare. My main is a Demon Hunter and I knew I was going to play one the second I saw the announcement trailer for that class. I've made a character for each class already and really enjoy the unique gameplay for each of the classes. I think I've gotten to a point where I feel okay making a review now, so I'll probably write it sometime soon.
Other than my daily posts on Superpad Unplugged, I've been called back to do some sound effects work for our upcoming game "Camera Obscura" set to launch on Steam. Sound effects is a difficult task to accomplish for the entertainment industry and I feel as if it might be even more challenging than doing music. It seems easier since sound effects last no longer than a few seconds, but getting it right seems to be much more difficult to achieve. I'm so close to finishing the Street Fighter Mix, but I've been so lazy about completing it that it still sit there as incomplete. I revisited an older project I had: Mach Rider Remix, and started thinking of a different way to mix it. I was going to make it sound more rockish, but I think I might go more electro with it. I'm working on so many music projects that I'm starting to feel limited in the resources I have. I really don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to buy new VSTs and programs if I'm not consistently making money at the moment. I feel like I could be doing a lot more productive work, but I can never get into the work mood after the main priorities have been completed.
So I finally completed some games, one of them being E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy for PC. It's a FPS/RPG open-world Action-game, and everything about it sounded really cool in the description and videos. After getting through the game, I felt like I didn't even experience 10% of what I saw in the videos or what was described on the game page. It was a painful playthrough of figuring out how the game worked with its terrible menu interface, convoluted game mechanics, and poorly designed combat. It crashed a lot, had a ton of glitches, and the story wasn't interesting at all. I have to praise its graphics and environment though. It was very atmospheric and immersive. The other game I finished was Samurai Warriors Katana for Wii (about time). I had this game forever, but I just didn't have the patience to sit down and play through it. It's an arcade, gun-rail like action game. There were a lot of parts I liked in the game where I'm just slashing at enemies and shooting them from afar. The problem is that out of the 8 weapons the player can choose from, only two were really useful: the spear the identified weak points and the musket which didn't require reloading. There were quite a few "mini-games" between the action that made it less than entertaining but rather more infuriating. There were 4 main campaign stories and once I finished the last one a 5th one appeared but wasn't playable unless I cleared all the previous mission with a certain score. It was semi-entertaining, but not enough for me to play through the whole game again and so I declared that I finished the game from there.
Dragon's Dogma finally released:
I'm still holding off on buying the game yet, but I really want it. I was worried when I saw a lot of negative reviews on it a day before it launched by critics. The average score has picked up and is in the green once again, so that has restored a bit of faith in the game for me. I hear there's day one content for it already, and so Capcom's shenanigans seems to still ensue. In the meantime, Diablo 3 is keeping me pretty well occupied as I try to get through some of my other games on the side when I'm not playing it. I already seemed very lax enough at the moment, yet I'm hoping to have a peaceful and enjoyable summer this year as I continue to get through some of my work and climb through some of my backlog.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Reflecting the past 2 years
It's been nearly 2 years since I've graduated. Exactly 2 years ago, I was up at 4am in the morning writing about the first game jam the Videogame Development Club had that I hosted and did music for, my horrible spring break of sickness and allergies, my unhappiness with school and not being able to build a proper portfolio, trying to look for a job, and suffering from sleep deprivation. It seemed like I was very bitter back then. 2 years later, I still don't have a proper portfolio, worked for 8 months and then got laid off, and up till now I'm still looking for a job. Here's another update in the industry: Sony is laying off 10,000 employees around the world while Electronic Arts is laying off 500-1000 employees. Blizzard already did their 600 along with other studios such as Obsidian Entertainment. At this point, I'm just applying whatever is available and have several back-up plans. One of my back-up plans, which I hope I don't have to resort to, is going back to school. At the very least, I'd be going back to Sac City College to study simple programming, game design, 3D modeling or graphics design. My ideal plan is to continue working on my music and independently developed games be recognized within the industry so that I can either: A) have my game picked up by a publisher or B) have a developer hire me for my skills as a game designer, music composer/producer, or simple concept artist. I like my ideal plan. I get to work with something I like and I have much more freedom of what I want to do.
Anyways, just a while ago I ended up buying around 8 games after I promised myself I wouldn't buy any games as of the new year until I completed a handful of games. But because of spring sales, I was too tempted and ended up buying quite a few. There's Dead Island, Sonic the Hedgehog, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends, Red Dead Redemption GOTY edition for PS3 with Dragon Quest VIII, Eternal Poison, and Tales of Legendia for PS2. I haven't really touched any of them except for Dead Island which I specifically got to play with a friend. It's a pretty fun game I suppose, but the game has a lot less content than I thought.
I tried out TERA Online over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I like the whole "action" aspect done right in an MMORPG. Sadly, the game is going to be monthly subscription based and so I won't be getting it. I am eagerly awaiting for Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 because of it. Besides those 2 games, I'm awaiting Dragon's Dogma for PS3. I have too many games right now, so I'm still trying to resist. One game I want to look out for is Cherry Tree High Comedy Club coming out on Steam.
It seems like a really laid-back, humor driven game. I like animé-ish looking games. I'm off for now.
Anyways, just a while ago I ended up buying around 8 games after I promised myself I wouldn't buy any games as of the new year until I completed a handful of games. But because of spring sales, I was too tempted and ended up buying quite a few. There's Dead Island, Sonic the Hedgehog, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends, Red Dead Redemption GOTY edition for PS3 with Dragon Quest VIII, Eternal Poison, and Tales of Legendia for PS2. I haven't really touched any of them except for Dead Island which I specifically got to play with a friend. It's a pretty fun game I suppose, but the game has a lot less content than I thought.
I tried out TERA Online over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I like the whole "action" aspect done right in an MMORPG. Sadly, the game is going to be monthly subscription based and so I won't be getting it. I am eagerly awaiting for Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 because of it. Besides those 2 games, I'm awaiting Dragon's Dogma for PS3. I have too many games right now, so I'm still trying to resist. One game I want to look out for is Cherry Tree High Comedy Club coming out on Steam.
It seems like a really laid-back, humor driven game. I like animé-ish looking games. I'm off for now.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Intermission
Hello all! It's already spring and almost April! Man, time is going by so quickly. I have completed the music to one of the projects I'm working on and am waiting for it to be published on Steam and XBLA. The other project I'm on seems to be dwindling down on momentum and might cancel eventually. With that, I'm kind of out of work to do that needs my immediate attention. I've been falling behind on doing my game write-ups so I don't have any tactile proof of what I've learned from games I've played. I counted it up and I'm up to 122 completed games now! Still, my backlog is a monster I can't put down so I have a lot more to go through. I'm still not done with the Street Fighter Mix and it's driving me nuts that I haven't yet. I'm currently working on a digital drawing that's taking much too long for its quality, but that just means I need a lot more practice. As always, I've been searching for a job within the Interactive Entertainment Industry to no avail. Open positions are limited and companies are laying off more than hiring lately. Blizzard recently reported a lay off of 600 employees across their company, most of them not in development. It was sad to hear that one of my friends that had worked with Blizzard for 11 years was one of them. I'm sure he'll be able to find another job quickly if he wanted to, me on the other hand...
So speaking of Blizzard, a release date for Diablo 3 has been made! On May 15th, 2012, we will get to revisit hell in all its new technological glory as Diablo's 3rd iteration makes its return to the series since Diablo 2's expansion back in 2001. I'm really excited about it now that I've finished Diablo 2 (I'm still thinking of playing through Diablo 1). Guild Wars 2 should be releasing sometime this year too, and I think it's one MMORPG I'm willing to go out and buy to play. Besides those two PC games, I am eagerly awaiting for Warriors Orochi 3 and Dragon's Dogma for the Playstation 3 as well as The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii. There are so many new games that have come out or about to release that it's hard to keep up. To name a few: Street Fighter X Tekken, Ninja Gaiden 3, Mass Effect 3, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, Soul Calibur V, and Final Fantasy XIII-2. For some reason, all of those games received bad remarks from critics or fans of each of those series. I'm about to do a proper review of that on tomorrow's Superpad post.
One of my friends got me back into playing MMOs again so I've started playing games like Aion, Vindictus, Dragon Nest, Maple Story, Rift, and Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes. I quickly slowed back down on all those games and finally convinced my friend to play Dungeon Defenders with me since Steam had a 50% off sale for the game over the weekend.
I've had the game for a few months now but didn't play it extensively, so he was able to catch up quite quickly and have already gone past my level. It's a really enjoyable game as it's simple to understand and learn while still challenging and engrossing throughout playing it. There has been a few other games I've been trying to finish up such as Eternal Sonata on PS3, Castlevania: Judgment on Wii, Nightshade on PS2, and E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy on PC. I completed a game called Painkiller on PC, and it was pretty interesting. The game was super fast-paced Action FPS that felt a lot like Quake and Unreal Tournament. I really liked the environment in that game. I also finally sat down and completed Ninja Gaiden 3: The Ancient Ship of Doom for the NES. It was very difficult, but a lot of fun. Playing older games on the NES make me realize how much I miss action platformers. The charming graphics, catchy tunes, and simple yet challenging gameplay seems to be very difficult to capture in games nowadays. Even with games that mimic classic gameplay of retro games, it just doesn't feel the same. The boss battles in Ninja Gaiden 3 were easier than the ones from 2 and 1 except for the last boss. When I finally found the pattern for defeating the final boss, he suddenly appears with a true form that was tricky at first but I realize was even easier than the first form. Then after that, there was a "final" form that had a shield you had to destroy before being able to damage him. By that point, I was already going "PLEASE, let this be the last form..." Developers were rather sadistic in a lot of the older games. I mean, you have a limited amount of continues in Ninja Gaiden 3! If you die at the final boss, you go waaaaaay back to the last check point you were at just like in the first one. When you beat one form of the final boss, you don't regain any health back. Ninja Gaiden 3 was pretty fun, but I think the first two were more memorable.
I've been pretty much relaxing after I finish doing a blog post each day if I'm not working on music or drawing. I've still been looking for a job and sent out a few more applications whenever I see an open position. This is like an intermission I'm in right now since I'm not actively working like I was before and haven't started working on another project yet. I'm probably going to start making my own games now that I have the time so that I can add them to my portfolio. I probably won't make it as lead design yet, but maybe I can still reach out to a developer that wants music if I can't find a job as a QA Analyst. Oh well, now that my sister is home for spring break and my friend is still available to play games each day, I'm going to enjoy my little intermission for now and get back in gear right after.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Year of the Dragon
Happy Chinese New Year! (It was last month, just saying it now). So a few days right before Chinese New Year, my laptop went ballistic and I lost a ton of data. I was writing on Superpad Unplugged and suddenly a virus was blocked and my browser shut down. I thought it was just an error or a cookie was caught as a virus. I opened my browser back up and it did it again and a program called Windows Anti-Virus 2012 popped up and started scanning my computer and what I saw it do was delete my programs on my computer. I shut everything down and tried to execute a recover point only to have the computer freeze. I started it up again and realized all my major window components were gone. I didn't panic and was more annoyed with the situation and decided to move all my data (save files, work, recordings, etc.) to my Vista side (I dual boot XP and Vista). Weary that the virus might be still lurking in my files, I didn't back them up yet. I started up Vista and wanted to delete the XP partition and merge it with my Vista in order to get enough hard drive space to do back-up, virus scan and defragment. Unfortunately, something went terribly wrong in the process as it merged with my partition with all my games and formatted it which wiped out 3 partitions in one fell swoop. No need to explain the rest, but I was frustrated, mad, upset, devastated, and alone with the situation because no one would be able to know what I had just lost. Losing game saves doesn't sound like much to most people, but for me it was 300+ hours of progress spanning over 20-50 games. I'm most upset with losing my save file for Terraria as I put 101 hours into it (and everything is randomly generated in that game, so I can never get back what I had before). This also happened right before I was going to try out my new Wacom Bamboo Tablet and right before my final composition for one of the game projects I'm working on. XP and Vista no longer was able to install on my laptop and everything seemed corrupt. Luckily I had recently purchased Windows 7 (originally for my sister, but it didn't work on her Macbook) and tried installing it on my laptop. It's what I'm using now just to continue working and playing my games (mostly having to start over most of them).
I ended up using my traumatic experience to create my last composition for the last level for a game I'm working with a team on. It was supposed to sound dangerous and somewhat hopeful, but it turned out to be dark and depressing. Still, the team seemed to have liked how it turned out which I'm happy for. I'm currently working on refining the tracks and creating arrangements before we finally publish the game on Xbox Live Arcade.
I'm back on track with writing my game write-ups and the game designs for each one. It's very good study and I hope I can use it on my upcoming projects when I finally make my own games (it needs to happen!). Also, I finally tried out my tablet but have yet to finish anything to show that I've indeed used it yet. I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow, but I'm not sure how long it will take me. I need to draw more this year and get better if I want to create any games this year.
I seem to be having a bit of a gaming crisis right now and I'm not sure if it's because I have too many (I really hope not) or if it's because newer games just don't interest me like older ones too. I'm more keen to believe that the latter is true as I spent last weekend playing through Gargoyle's Quest 1 & 2 and Demon's Crest. I never knew there was a 2nd Gargoyle's Quest, but I did play the 1st and 3rd (Demon's Crest) when I was 5 and 7. 1 was impossible for me when I was 5 since I couldn't even get past the first level. Demon's Crest was also very hard but also scary to me back then. Well, the first I played at a cousin's house and Demon's Crest my dad returned rather quickly so I never had the chance to play them again. I have all three now and decided to play through them. I had a lot of fun, especially with Demon's Crest! I think what has changed the way I see and play games is the fact that I'm thinking more like a game designer now and I'm so critical on so many things. I didn't like Gargoyle's Quest 2, even though it was very similar to the first which I really enjoyed. If I played them a few years ago, I would've probably thought all 3 were pretty entertaining with Demon's Crest be more fun than the others. Now I look at them and point out the concept, level designs, gameplay flow, aesthetics, poor design choices, etc. Ah, here I am ranting about a game that most people might have not even have heard of when I should've just said "I played 3 retro games last weekend." Sorry~
Anyways, all three games are Action-Platformers with very light RPG elements and were released on the Gameboy Classic, NES, and Super NES respective to the release. Revisiting these old games remind me that I still love videogames very much, and it's always a scary thing for one who loves it so much to start thinking that they're "boring" or not "interesting" anymore. I say this because a lot of people I meet in the game industry say "I don't have time for games anymore" or "I don't really find them fun if I'm working on them day in and day out" whenever I ask "what have you played recently?" I know a lot of game developers emphasize having a passion for videogames and many still do love them, but I've also met a lot of developers or those in the business of videogames having no interest in them. I don't want that to happen to me...=\
So I've been giving PC games a rest since losing my game files was too depressing (well, other than playing League of Legends since the only thing I lost from that were my masteries sheet). On Playstation 3, I've been switching off a whole slew of games: CoD: Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3, Dark Souls, TES5: Skyrim, Hyperdimension Neptunia, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Way of the Samurai 3, BlazBlue Continuum Shift, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and Devil May Cry 4. I finally finished all 4 story modes on Dynasty Warriors 7 and loved it immensely and I completed Bayonetta which I found to be a much greater game than I could possibly imagine. Whenever I'm done with work for the day and I look at all those games, I get the feeling of not wanting to play any of them and sometimes the feeling of wanting to play all of them. I just can't really determine if it's my own mind being exhausted or if current day videogames don't interest me as much. It's strange, I get so hyped up and excited whenever I see a trailer to a new game but don't have that same feeling when I get it and play it (at least not anymore).
With the amount of games I have on consoles as well as the heavy purchases I made during the Steam winter sales, I'm reluctant to buy any new games until I'm at least somewhat caught up in my backlog. Still, there are so many new games that's soooo tempting to get. Final Fantasy XIII-2, Soul Calibur 5 and The Darkness 2 just came out. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend comes out this up coming Tuesday. Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning just came out and I even tried the demo out for that game. Then there's Syndicate, Asura's Wrath, Hyperdimension Neptunia MK2, Street Fighter X Tekken, Mass Effect 3, Tales of Graces f, Ninja Gaiden 3, and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City all within the next month. I think the game that I'll probably have the hardest time resisting to buy (besides Diablo 3 and Phantasy Star Online 2 as I've mentioned multiple times in the past), is Warriors Orochi 3:
I was elated and excited upon hearing that the game will be brought over to North America (as it was previously announced that it wasn't). The Warriors Orochi series is probably Koei's best spin-off of the Dynasty Warriors series with a unique team system and the cross over between Dynasty Warriors (Ancient China during the 3 Kingdom Era) and Samurai Warriors (Feudal Japan of the Sengoku Era). In Warriors Orochi 3, there will be even more cross-overs with Tecmo merged with Koei now. So there are characters from Ninja Gaiden, Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War, Warriors: Legends of Troy and now Dead or Alive as well as Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll will also be in the game. I'M SO EXCITED!
Well, that's it for now. I'm hoping to get some more work done tomorrow and hopefully have all music done for the current game project done by the end of the month.
Monday, January 9, 2012
A new year begins
Happy 2012!
I've been on break from doing music, writing for the blog, and all sorts of work for the past 2 weeks. I had a relaxing break with one of my friends over for one of the week playing League of Legends everyday. I got to hang out with some of my other friends, go out for lunch, and play some games. It felt like forever since I had a real vacation like that. Christmas is over, the new year began, all my friends and family are back in school, work, army, and it's time for me to get back on track. I have one more composition and 4 more arrangements for one of the projects I'm working on before we publish it on Xbox Live Arcade. I'm hoping to get things done this month, I'm really not sure how long this last composition will take me. In other news of music, I seriously need to finish that Street Fighter Mix and move on to new stuff. This year, I hope to accomplish a lot more than I did last year. Here's the resolution I had in 2011 and the one I made for this year in 2012.
Reflection of 2011’s resolutions
1) Land a job in the Interactive Entertainment Industry, or at the very least Editorial relating to the industry
-Worked for an online game company for 8 months before getting laid off. This took up 2/3rd of my year. It was good for work experience and it wasn’t that hard, but it reinforces my desire to work in design and not publishing for the game industry.
2) Produce as much composition/mixes/covers of music as possible
-Meh, I felt like I could’ve done a LOT more than what I did in 2011. I did music for 8 games. 5 of them were for Game Jam competitions, 1 got cancelled (sadly), and 2 I’m still currently working on to have published. Then there are the experimentations I had throughout the year which you can see on my FB profile videos. What probably held me up the most (besides the job I had) was the Street Fighter mix I was working on. I should finish it and not do anything that long again unless needed.
Also, got two games I did music for published on Xbox Live Arcade!
3) Get serious in developing indie games and set up an awesome portal to my work
-I failed hard on this one. I started on one of my games, but I didn’t get to continue since I’ve been mostly working on writing and music. I also didn’t get a site setup and don’t feel like making one until I have at least one of my own games complete to put up on there.
4) Draw a lot! Traditional, digital, anything! I must get back into art again. Video and Photography too.
-Failed miserably on this one too. I did draw a little in the beginning of the year, but I simply didn’t have enough time to draw all the time. It’s saddening…I hope that changes this year since I’m buying a new tablet.
5) Beat as many videogames as possible AND continue to write design analysis for each one. One more step towards becoming a game designer~ (Beat 18 games between graduating and now).
-This is what I possibly excelled at the most in 2011. I completed 66 games and wrote 28 game reviews posted on Metacritic (on the user side of course). I didn’t do those write-ups for each game, but I still plan to. And even though I didn’t, I know I learned a lot because I can point out the many flaws in level designs, programming, mechanics and concepts as well as a game’s strengths that made it so fun or thought provoking. I want to continue this quest, because it’s productive AND fun!
3 out of 5, somewhat good I guess?
New Year’s Resolution for 2012:
1) Seriously this time, I want to draw more
2) Setup those sites and pages (put together portfolio)
3) Produce/Mix more music than I did in 2011 (Did 27 in 2011)
4) Work on those games, I got 4 ideas waiting to be spawned
5) Continue my quests in playing and writing those games!
We'll see how I do this year~
I've been on break from doing music, writing for the blog, and all sorts of work for the past 2 weeks. I had a relaxing break with one of my friends over for one of the week playing League of Legends everyday. I got to hang out with some of my other friends, go out for lunch, and play some games. It felt like forever since I had a real vacation like that. Christmas is over, the new year began, all my friends and family are back in school, work, army, and it's time for me to get back on track. I have one more composition and 4 more arrangements for one of the projects I'm working on before we publish it on Xbox Live Arcade. I'm hoping to get things done this month, I'm really not sure how long this last composition will take me. In other news of music, I seriously need to finish that Street Fighter Mix and move on to new stuff. This year, I hope to accomplish a lot more than I did last year. Here's the resolution I had in 2011 and the one I made for this year in 2012.
Reflection of 2011’s resolutions
1) Land a job in the Interactive Entertainment Industry, or at the very least Editorial relating to the industry
-Worked for an online game company for 8 months before getting laid off. This took up 2/3rd of my year. It was good for work experience and it wasn’t that hard, but it reinforces my desire to work in design and not publishing for the game industry.
2) Produce as much composition/mixes/covers of music as possible
-Meh, I felt like I could’ve done a LOT more than what I did in 2011. I did music for 8 games. 5 of them were for Game Jam competitions, 1 got cancelled (sadly), and 2 I’m still currently working on to have published. Then there are the experimentations I had throughout the year which you can see on my FB profile videos. What probably held me up the most (besides the job I had) was the Street Fighter mix I was working on. I should finish it and not do anything that long again unless needed.
Also, got two games I did music for published on Xbox Live Arcade!
3) Get serious in developing indie games and set up an awesome portal to my work
-I failed hard on this one. I started on one of my games, but I didn’t get to continue since I’ve been mostly working on writing and music. I also didn’t get a site setup and don’t feel like making one until I have at least one of my own games complete to put up on there.
4) Draw a lot! Traditional, digital, anything! I must get back into art again. Video and Photography too.
-Failed miserably on this one too. I did draw a little in the beginning of the year, but I simply didn’t have enough time to draw all the time. It’s saddening…I hope that changes this year since I’m buying a new tablet.
5) Beat as many videogames as possible AND continue to write design analysis for each one. One more step towards becoming a game designer~ (Beat 18 games between graduating and now).
-This is what I possibly excelled at the most in 2011. I completed 66 games and wrote 28 game reviews posted on Metacritic (on the user side of course). I didn’t do those write-ups for each game, but I still plan to. And even though I didn’t, I know I learned a lot because I can point out the many flaws in level designs, programming, mechanics and concepts as well as a game’s strengths that made it so fun or thought provoking. I want to continue this quest, because it’s productive AND fun!
3 out of 5, somewhat good I guess?
New Year’s Resolution for 2012:
1) Seriously this time, I want to draw more
2) Setup those sites and pages (put together portfolio)
3) Produce/Mix more music than I did in 2011 (Did 27 in 2011)
4) Work on those games, I got 4 ideas waiting to be spawned
5) Continue my quests in playing and writing those games!
We'll see how I do this year~
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