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).
