Don't end just yet, Summer!

Man, what a crazy month! Starting from June, there was the E3 conference to start off the Summer. Following that was the Steam Summer Sales that began a lot sooner than I thought. Despite my efforts, I still ended up spending twice as much as I wanted to for the sales. Then I started playing Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty while watching the playoffs for DotA 2 on the first week of July. Then EVO 2014 streams started that weekend with some of the craziest matches in fighting game history; One being BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma Grand Finals (Starting at 01:40:58) that had 7 match points before Garireo reached the ultimate victory.  That was definitely THE most intense Grand Final of EVO this year.  I also enjoyed the finals for Super Smash Bros. Melee.  There was also the Grand Final for Ultra Street Fighter IV, which wasn't as exciting; however, there was an interesting fact about the winner: He used a Playstation 1 gamepad throughout the tournament.  I don't know how he did it.  That controller used to give me blisters all the time before they introduced the dual analog sticks.  My favorite EVO moment this year was Justin Wong related, just like last year.


Starting at 12:18.  It's the last match with 2 points for both players, and the victor will move onto the Grand Finals.  Justin Wong is down to his Akuma, who can easily be taken out in one combo, and Filipino Champ had brought out his Phoenix with a level 5 meter which transforms her into Dark Phoenix.  At that pivotal moment when Filipino Champ got the hit confirm at 12:26, I immediately thought "it's over, Justin lost..."  But to my surprise, Filipino Champ X-Factored and dove in WITH his support out to hopefully end it right there.  In that crucial moment, Justin Wong was able to react to it with a Messatsu-Goshoryu, (a special Shoryuken/Dragon Punch) which has a good amount of frames of invincibility during start-up, and make contact with both characters of Filipino Champ which finished the match right there.  I kept wondering if it would have been different if Filipino Champ was a bit more patient and stalled those last 20 seconds (Justin Wong used to do that ALL the time!).  Still, it was one of those great moments that makes watching these matches streamed live worth it.  Right after EVO was the DotA 2 International which holds the record for highest reward pot of over $10 Million in e-sports history.  Unfortunately, I've been so worn out from watching so many streams, keeping up with work, and trying to clear games that I didn't follow The International very closely and ended up missing the Grand Finals.  I heard it was pretty decisive and wasn't that fun to watch compared to the lower brackets and early playoffs.

In between all that news following, game buying, and stream watching madness, I managed to get some work done.  I had finished the Ultima Exodus Remix Project I've been working on and successfully uploaded all 10 tracks on Youtube.


All 10 tracks are in that player there.  With the project finally completed, I started finishing up loose ends with projects I was working on before this week.  Right after that, I'm going to need to start looking at job openings again, but this time for Audio rather than Quality Assurance.  It's causing a bit of stress as more time passes and my chances of finding a job becomes slimmer.  But I refuse to give up and work at a job that I won't allow me to get better with music and learn more about game development.  Until I find one, I might continue doing more remix projects, because remix, arranging, and covering videogame music has been something I've been wanting to do all my life and wasn't able to until just recently.

In terms of games, I'd say I've been playing a lot more enjoyable games compared to what I played back in April and May.  I finally got around to finishing Dragon's Crown and was presented with end-game content with a lot more I can do!  It was surprising to see after the credits ended and there was more to the game.  I finally got around to finishing Dead Rising 2 as well, and it was so painful.  There were some aspects I really enjoyed out of the game, but it mostly frustrated me.  There isn't much to say about it.  One of my friends bought me Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae for my Birthday and I played it days after and finished it pretty quickly.  For a Indie developed Hack-n-Slash, I thought it was solid.  It was challenging, had a lot of combo options and skills, a decent amount of unlockables, and a very pretty main character.  Phantasy Star Portable, I've had on my PSP since 2009 and never beat because of how incredibly grindy it got at the end.  I tried one last time as I've played it off and on for the past 4 years after graduating, but I still wasn't able to defeat the final form of the last boss and so I gave up.  I watched the ending cinematics on Youtube and considered the game to be finished under my excel sheet.  Magicite was one of the games I bought during the Steam Summer Sale.  It's an Action-Platformer with crafting aspects and rogue-like elements.  It's like a mix between Terraria and Risk of Rain.  I played the game quite a bit with two of my friends and I managed to finally beat it twice: once solo and the 2nd time with my friends.  I also finished Resident Evil 6 with a friend recently and really enjoyed it a lot!  I can see why a lot of fans are upset with it as it's a lot less about exploration, puzzles, and horror and a bigger focus on Action and cooperative play.  I thought Capcom did a great job making a fun co-op game with long-time favorite characters of the series.  I had bought a lot of 2D platformers during the Steam Summer Sale and ended up being very disappointed in a lot of them.  Inescapable was short, boring, and had a dumb ending.  Oniken had incredible cutscenes that truly felt like a NES game, but took some of the worst aspects of Action-platformers for its game play and design.  Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge, I didn't have much expectations for, but I bought it because Jake "Virt" Kaufman created the music for it.  The game wasn't that great, but the ending credits song by A_Rival is amazing!

Then there were 2D platformers I got that were pretty good or incredible!  1001 Spikes is one of the incredible ones!  There are so many games that want to capture the retro, 8-bit era magic of games but don't quite get it other than mimicking the graphics with some annoying chip-tunes that screams "generic videogame music!"  But 1001 Spikes seems to get it right!  Rather than emulating a game for the NES and saying that it's retro, it has all the concepts of a retro game with a modern mind behind it.  1001 Spikes is a difficult, troll-a-thon, platformer that consists of very short, but very challenging levels that are all intricately designed with a defined concept behind it.  Every jump, every enemy, and every trap are carefully placed for reasons of player reaction, challenge, and opposition.  It's a game where you will die a lot but learn from with each try with a satisfaction of completion at the end of each level.  Memorization is required and so is quick reflexes and reactions.  Much like Dragon's Crown, I thought I had completed the game when it starts playing a cinematic and then presents more gameplay at the end!  Besides the many modes and content available, there's also a ton of extra characters to play as.  Some that are quite familiar from other game franchises.  It's just one surprise after another with this game, and I love it!  The last Hardcore platformer I played that felt this great was Super Meat Boy.  One of the secret characters in 1001 Spikes is Nyx from NyxQuest.  I remembered the game but never got it, and so I did during the Steam Summer Sale.  It was a short 3 hour adventure, but it had some really nice gameplay that utilizes the mouse to move everything around and the keyboard to jump, fly and glide towards safety.  It was a pretty fun game and I only hated one of the levels.  Another 2D platformer I got that I absolutely loved was Abyss Odyssey.  I actually pre-ordered it and didn't even know much about it.  I saw a trailer for it during E3 and said "it looks kinda like Castlevania and I'm craving for a Metroidvania game right now."  There were many surprises in store for me in this game as the combat system is inspired by fighting games, particularly Super Smash Bros.  Fighting is similar to Super Smash Bros. with the ability to skill cancel like in Street Fighter or the game Valdis Story.  The game has some rogue-like elements where the levels, enemies, item placements, shops, and altars are randomly generated.  This game is also very tough, but not in the same way as 1001 Spikes.  Contrary to 1001 Spikes, you CAN'T memorize anything in Abyss Odyssey since everything changes every time you play.  The combat system has a lot of depth to it for being so heavily associated with Super Smash Bros. and it kept me wanting more as I played the game.  The music is great too!

Along with the game, I also get the soundtrack for free for pre-purchasing and I'm glad I did.  I'd say I played Magicite (23 hours) and Abyss Odyssey (25 hours) the most recently.  Others games I've completed recently are: StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty (working on Heart of the Swarm now), Killer is Dead (which I loved), and Sniper Elite V2 (it was sorta fun).

I've got a lot of stuff ahead of me in the next month such as looking for a job in audio, finishing up projects, and clearing more of my backlog.

P.S. I started watching an animé called Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? (Is the Order a Rabbit?) and it's so cute I can't contain myself!

The Fall of Summer

I can feel Fall approaching as I'm sneezing more often these few days.  I hate Spring and Fall because of the unbearable allergic reactions I get from the pollen floating around when Winter's blistering cold melts or when Summer's searing heat dissipates.  And again, an entire Summer has gone by where I'd say I'll go swimming and didn't even go once.  I also haven't been keeping up with going to the gym as regularly the past two months.  I think this week might be the first week I'll have gone all three days of the week since the first week of July.

I'm not sure what to report this month since it feels like a lot has happened, yet it also feels like it flew by like it was nothing.  The perception of time is an odd thing where it can feel long and short at the same time.  Between my last post and today's, we had family friends from China visit us for two weeks.  In those two weeks, we pretty much had a large dinner of some sort every night at my house, or my grandmother's house, or my aunt's house, or at a restaurant.  Long story short: I pigged out.  So I gained a bit more weight again and have to work towards losing them again.  It was good seeing my family friends again since it's been 7 years since I last seen them.

In between working on some music work, I got the chance to try out Payday 2 with a friend when we saw it on our Steam game list the day before it launched.  It must've been some sort of Open Beta or special for those who owned the first game.  I kept commenting on how great the music was and looked it up and realized it was Simon Viklund who led the remake of Bionic Commando Rearmed and remixed all the original songs.  I then found out that there was a little remix contest he was holding that involved one of the tracks he made for Payday 2.  Unfortunately, I found out the day of submission and knew I couldn't finish it in time.  So I just did it for fun and practice.  Here it is:


I only spent two days working on this, but I was super focused.  I wish I were that focused on all the projects I worked on.  Sadly, I've been working on a small arrangement project for one of the games I was working on and it's still not done.  I really want to finish up and move onto new things so I can build up that portfolio.  I'm really not sure if I'm doing what's best for my career right now as most people would say that I'm not and that I should be working, no matter what it is.  I just don't want to end up working at a place long enough that I can't get to where ever I had originally planned.  It'd be nice to work on an awesome game at a studio and be proud of the project I was working on, but I don't know how to go about doing that.  So for now, I want to work on the game and music projects I have in mind until I feel satisfied and have the opportunity to show developers what I'm capable of.

Which tournament did I watch this month again?  I'm pretty sure it was DotA 2's International 3.  There were a lot of tournaments going on this month including League of Legends, Starcraft 2, Pokémon, and a bunch of others.  I had a lot of fun watching DotA 2, but I was so burnt out from it that I didn't feel like watching any other.  I skipped watching LoL entirely this year.  I'd really like to watch some more fighting game tournaments though.  EVO was just so exciting this year that it still lingers on my mind right now.

Speaking of fighting games, I pre-ordered Skullgirls for Steam and got a special Color DLC Palette.  I usually don't care for color changes for characters in fighting games, but when I saw how many references it made to other videogames, animé, and pop culture, I jumped at the opportunity to nab it.  The game's a lot of fun and has great mechanics for an indie developed game.  I only wish that it had some sort of endless mode for single-player.

My friends have been asking me to stream the games I play for a while and I keep refusing.  But I eventually made the effort to gather the applications and accounts to start streaming and have been doing so.  I found out that Twitch records your entire broadcast and I was happy about that.  I was going to download the videos and make highlight videos of my own since I didn't really want to make them on Twitch or Youtube.  But then, one day out of nowhere, 7 of those videos were gone.  I looked it up on the forums and realized that Twitch periodically deletes videos every 4-7 days.  I was furious and sad at the same time.  Actually, I think that happened earlier this week.  This week was quite the roller coaster ride for me.  On Sunday night, I found out that my Kendo Sensei Moon Kang had passed away the day before due to terminal illness of lung cancer.  I can't say that I was surprised since he smoked a lot, but it was still very saddening to hear.  I was hoping to still see him in the future if I had ever gone back to Irvine for work.  He taught me a lot those 2 short years I was at UC Irvine about Kendo and how they can be carried over to our daily lives.  In Kendo, he tells the students often not to hesitate.  If you strike an enemy, make it decisive and quick.  "Don't think too much and just do it."  I guess that could be said about anything we do in life.  If we hesitate too much, we start building up doubt and can't perform our best.  Sadly, that didn't carry over very well for me in my career.  Still, I remember how empowering it felt in Kendo whenever I made a strike and was able to perform well.  Kang Sensei would tells us the story of how one of the masters would show their student that hesitation makes their swing sloppy.  They would leave a small crack on a sliding door, close their eyes, and cut in-between the crack several times with a katana and not hit the door or wall.  As long as you practice, don't hesitate, and have confidence with every swing, you will never miss your mark.  There are many more stories and lessons he gave, but then I'll just be rambling on and on.  He really was an inspirational teacher, and I'm going to miss him.

Right after seeing the post about Kang Sensei's passing, I saw an incredible deal for Lost Planet 2 for $6 on Green Man Gaming.  I purchased it and was given no steam key.  After some frustrating research and submitting a ticket for support, I was told that they ran out of keys to give but would give me one as soon as they got more.  Luckily, they gave me one the day after.  Now that's quick and responsive customer support!  After purchasing Lost Planet 2, I was streaming some Retro City Rampage for my friends and then looked into the recordings section and that's when I found out 7 of my other videos were gone.  So yeah, Sunday night was a pretty bad night for me.  The next morning, I found out that Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F had a retail version being sold.  I was happy about it, but was also indecisive about getting it since it was $49.99.  By this point, I had the mixture of emotions from the night before with the ones right then and there.  Sadness, frustration, anger, happiness, and indecisiveness overwhelmed me that day.

On Tuesday, I went out and bought Project DIVA F, found out that I got my Lost Planet 2 key on Monday in my e-mail, and got over my anger over losing my video recordings on Twitch.  So my week was starting to turn around.  On Thursday (yesterday), Valve had put up 50+ greenlit games on sale between 10%-75% off in celebration of one year since Steam Greenlight had launched.  It hit a weak spot for me and I bought 4 games.  And here I am today, happy for the most part, but frustrated with myself that an entire month has gone by and have accomplished very little.  The most productive thing I did in August was the Payday 2 remix, and that was only 2 days out of the 31 days of this month. The only other "productive" thing worth mentioning I've done is the completion of 88 games from last months checkpoint of 70.  This does make me happy and feel a bit proud that I got through so many games, but there are still plenty to go through.

So Unreal dude!

Blah, I'm so burnt out...So I finally start my gamer blog and have been diligently posting each day starting from this Monday.  http://superpad.blogspot.com/  I'm a lot more careful with word choice and take longer to think about what I want to say compared to what I write on this blog, haha.  This blog, I write in a train of thought with minimal structuring (depending on whether I plan it out or not).  I'm not planning it out this time as much as I usually do since I want to keep it short and go finish Genji.  Yeah...I didn't beat the game yet...haha.  But I did Beat Unreal Tournament 3 with my friend, and it's one of the things I wanted to talk about anyways:

[Unreal Tournament 3 - PS3]

This is not a review btw, I'm already too tired from doing the review on NBA Jam today on the other blog.  I'll probably do a lot less game reviews here now since I'm doing that as my job on the other blog.

Sooooo, the biggest surprise (besides buying it used for $5 at Play n Trade) was that this UT installment had a story.  Whaaaaaat?  A story?  UT has always been about running killing people.  Sure, it follows the universe of Unreal (I did not like the series, it's soo slow...and only UT2004 I really liked) but it never gave as detailed of story telling as UT3, as shallow as it may be.  So some alien dudes pop outta nowhere and start killing the humans and the surviving human mercenaries are brought to a team who participates in the tournament.  The surviving humans want revenge and decides to work their way up the tournament to find the woman...creature...thing...that started killing everyone.  AWESOME, LET'S GO KILL.  Oh wait, we don't really kill?  We're just capturing points and flags?

Yeah, a majority of the game was Capture Point (called Warfare) and Capture the Flag (basic CTF mode) and let the player go into Deathmatch on occasion.  I'm so glad I had a friend playing with me because GOD, the computer AI on your team is idiotic!  You will as them to defend and they'll rush up.  You order them to attack and they end up in a vehicle next to the capture point constantly shooting the captured point, but not taking it back.  It was mostly the character Jester, the main character's sister, that caused the most problems.  So, the killing was very satisfying at points and there were aspects that were very enjoyable (lots of weapons and vehicles, a hover board, crazy level physics, etc.).  But for the most part, UT3 was a showcase that presented the possibilities of the engine.  Well it worked since several dozen companies are using the engine for all sorts of games.  It was interesting having dialogue, cinematics, and narration throughout the story, but it didn't really matter and wasn't very dynamic.  It was pretty much "find this woman and kill her".  Not a bad deal for $5, it'll be a good distraction from my other games once in a while by playing death match against the AI.  The opponent AI is pretty smart though, compared to the ally AI.

Hmm, so besides that, what else to talk about...Ummm, I played Quake Live for the first time since June.  I died a lot and barely did anything, but I found it to be enjoyable for some reason.  Everyone was playing at such high experience and skill that I felt a bit of a league thing going on.  It was a Clan battle, so I'm not surprised.  I enjoy playing against stronger opponents and learning from them.  Quake Live is like UT2004, or more like UT2004 IS Quake.  It's free, and it plays off the browser, which is astonishing and beneficial to me because of limited HD space.

It's fun to watch pros play competitively in games.  Especially when stuff like this happens:

Halloween was this past Sunday.  I didn't feel like doing anything.  My friend invited me to eat sushi with him and then we played DotA with him and his friends.  I missed DotA so much, mainly because I didn't mind losing because we were all friends and treated each other respectfully.  I missed that a lot when I was playing LoL (League of Legends).  People need to be more civil on the internet...wishful thinking.  I bought Nation Red on Steam during the Halloween sale and enjoyed the fast (very fast) paced action of killing zombies.  At night, I played games again with my friend on Team Fortress 2 for the Halloween event and got one item throughout the whole night.  I'm getting less work done since I spend so much time on one thing (recently, it's the blog).  I need to catch up and start finishing stuff (games - both making and playing, music, books, art, videos, etc.)  Time passes so fast now, it's scary.  I want to enjoy life, as well as the time that I have now since I'm not working yet.  But time is moving so quickly and not allowing me to do the things I want completed while still enjoying things that are necessary.  It's a lot of give and take...Hmm, an hour passed already.  Guess I'll go and work on Genji some more.  It's not a long game.  I think it's about 10 hours long.  But the game has aspects which I find irritating and it discourages me from playing it each time I pick it up.  Oh man, and I'm thinking of beating Ninja Gaiden Sigma after Genji...

To Blog or not to Blog?

I've been wondering if I should start a public blog that concentrates on Videogames in its every aspect: as entertainment, art medium, business model, the industry, influences, etc.  If I were to start one, who would read it?  There's already hundreds of blogs dedicated to videogames already.  The difference would be that the blog would have my own opinions and insights to them.  But it also arises the question of "who cares?"  It's a troubling debate, but I believe it would be a good way for me to continue improving my writing and prevent it from deteriorating from not being in school and from my unstructured writing here on this blog.  It might also help me get a job as a game reviewer?  Not sure, but I write so much on videogames that I feel I should start that new blog.

Medal of Honor didn't receive as grand of a review from critics and gamers as EA had hoped and landed an average of 7/10 on all 3 platforms (PS3, Xbox360, PC).  The many trolls, haters, and fanboys had downgraded MoH by comparing it to the upcoming Call of Duty and past Modern Warfare games.  I haven't gotten a chance to buy the game and play it myself, but this is what I think from the open beta:

[Medal of Honor - Electronic Arts - PC Open Beta]

The game blew away all expectations I had on this game.  The graphics are amazing, the environment immerses the player into the situation with realistic sounds, smooth gameplay, and unique multiplayer experience.  The multiplayer is fast-paced, but is very team orientated.  This is both refreshing and the bane to the experience.  The gameplay demands that you work cooperatively with your team mates in order to fulfill the objectives.  Most all First-Person Shooters do not have this element within their multiplayer, despite it being a team-based game.  Even in Modern Warfare 1 & 2, people will most likely run off on their own to get kills and brag about how they had to carry the team without working with the team to capture points.  Well, in MoH you have to work with your team if you even WANT to get kills because of the way the level was designed.

This can also be a problem.  The level is designed so that there are very few options of which path to take and it can be very open ranged.  So if the opposing team played the game enough and memorized the spawn locations, it's possible to fall into a infinite loop of spawn kills.  This happened a few times when I played, and I could not do anything about it.  It also doesn't help if your team goes off on their own and keep getting killed.  When I'm playing a good game, the team is in a line pushing forward carefully and strategically.  When both teams are playing well with their team mates and there isn't server lag, the experience can be more exhilarating than many other FPS games out there.  Besides lag, poor design choices for spawning, and the reliance on good team work, the biggest complaint I would have on the multiplayer for MoH would be the limited amount of customization the game allows the player to work with.  I think I mentioned it before in the last post, but there's only 3 classes with only 8 levels on each class making a total of 24 customizable parts and weapons.  Compared Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the amount of content is very shallow and kills a bit of the replay value from the multiplayer.  Many gamers have expressed their hatred of EA copying CoD:MW2 in MoH.  Well after playing the game, I can't say I agree.  The gameplay feels distinctively different from MW2 as strategies change and gameplay is utilized differently during a fire-fight.  In MW2, you want to keep moving and press on forward.  In MoH, players will take cues from their team mates when to move up, when to support, when to cover, when to attack, etc.

Because I haven't played the actual game yet, I can't give a concrete score or opinion of the entire game.  But given the chance to play open beta multiplayer, I will possibly buy the game in the future because of how impressive the experience was.

You can check the critic reviews at Metacritic.com.

Anyways, I've been reading news a lot more recently.  Sure over 75% of those news are related to videogames, but it's a chance for me to learn more about the industry.  The amount of changes and the pace the world moves at shows the prevalent evolution of technology and modern living (or at least the deterioration of our lives).  Some quick news:

-Vindictus went Open Beta today.  Sucks I don't have enough Hard drive space for it.

-Dynasty Warriors Online goes Closed Beta tomorrow.  I already downloaded it.

-DotA 2 officially announced by Valve:

Need I say more?  I found it funny and strange right from the beginning when they copyrighted the term "Dota" just recently.  Pendragon and Guinsoo (who worked on DotA and then went to Riot Games to work on League of Legends) expressed their concern over the copyright and how it might affect the community.  I understand what they're saying and how it might affect the modding community of DotA, but perhaps it's time for DotA to evolve.  Valve is well known for embracing the modding community and bringing those games to greater heights, making them better (Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat, Killing Floor, etc.).  Along with bringing all the original 100+ Characters from DotA, the game will be enhanced and the limitations of the Warcraft 3 editor will be taken off as Icefrog (one of the original developers of DotA and work on Heroes of Newerth) now has the resources and know-how to create the dream creation of DotA he had always hoped for.  I hope I can one day do something of that nature and lead a game project of my own.

That's about it for short news I think...I read an article about story writing in videogames!

While reading through comments about the issue of Valve's copyright over the term "Dota,"  I found out about two games:

[Gang Garrison 2 - 2D online version of Team Fortress 2]

The gameplay is similar to games like Soldat, Gunster: Rain of Bullets, and Booster Trooper.  I downloaded it, but I haven't had the chance to try it yet.

[Monday Night Combat - Xbox Live Arcade Game]

It's supposed to be a word play on Monday Night "Football" where the game scenario is like a sports game in a futuristic, Team Fortress 2-like setting with influences from DotA where the two lanes of computer AI attacks the other side with players attacking the other team while defending their main base using towers.  So it's a mix of Team Fortress 2 and DotA.  I gotta say that it caught my attention, but too bad it's not on PC.  I'd probably buy it if it was, haha.

Lastly, despite the arguments between Infinity Ward and Activision and the rivalry between EA's Medal of Honor with Activision's Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Black Ops certainly looks impressive and is a step up from Treyarch's last CoD: World at War.

The graphics look so clean and slick!  The customization is limitless, even compared to Modern Warfare 2.  I'm going to have to resist buying it though since I already have a large amount of FPS games within my library of games.  As someone who's going into the industry, I should really balance myself and play a wide range of genres (which means I should really play those PS2, Gamecube, Wii, PSP, DS, and PC games that are just sitting there untouched...).

I've been overworking so much that I end projects and work at 10PM or later now.  I'm about to do some drawing right now too since I didn't the past 2 nights.  I know I can't do everything, but I would really like to.  Doing my best then, now, and in the future.

Last day of freedom (spring break)

I thought I'd make a short rant for the month of March and a quick recap of my spring break.  The month of March was a crazy one with final essays, projects and exams as I got ready for spring break.   I just checked my grades 2 nights ago, and amazing got 3 A's and 2 A-'s (the two classes that consisted of the one I thought I did bad in and one I hated).  But enough of that, I enjoyed my spring break.  How do I know that?  Because it felt short, and time flies when you're having fun.

I was going to do some work either with personal projects, club work, or writing a statement of acceptance into the game culture program; however, I did nothing!!!  I ended finals on the first day and so I got about 2 weeks of spring break.  In the first week, I went to Play N Trade with my dad near our house and bought some games since they were going out of business and had a big sale.  It's sad to hear they're not going to be there anymore, and we were just going there to buy Street Fighter IV.

They didn't have it, but their sales were pretty awesome and just to difficult to ignore.  Playstation 2 games were 50% off and Wii games were 20% off.  We ended up buying *cough* "10 games."  Yeah, it was pretty epic.  I'm going to be super busy this summer, haha.  We got some pretty good games too, some being ones I've wanted for 9 years now.  To name a few, we got Dawn of Mana (New/unopened too!), Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Xenosaga Episode 1, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Tekken 5 (Jin and Asuka Kazama FTW!) all being on PS2.

[WARNING: Blood and gore consists in this video.  Don't watch if you can't handle it.]

The only one game that wasn't PS2 was Dead Rising: Chop Till you Drop for Wii.  Yup, I actually bought it, and I think I spent most of my break playing this game killing over 3000+ zombies.  Killing zombies is pretty addictive in this game, and it's very relaxing too! XD  Other than that, I played some Tekken 5 as substitute for Street Fighter 4 (for now) with my dad along with 2 nights of X-Men Legends 2.  I also played a little bit of Gameboy DS and I think 1 night of DotA.

Well, class starts tommorrow and I want to enjoy a little bit of freedom before then, so I think I'll go play something right now.  Yeah, I'm not looking forward to this quarter, maybe except for my Game Design class (dubbed World of Warcraft Class by my professor) that is if I can get in.

VI SITTER HÄR I VENTEN OCH SPELAR LITE DOTA

I'd like to rant a bit about a game I've come to realize about a year or two ago. Defense of the Ancients (DotA) is a Warcraft III custom map campaign that supports up to 10 players in a RPG style gameplay that allows the control over a character/hero with leveling, item purchases, buffs and debuffs, and many other RPG-like characteristics. Currently, there are 90 characters to choose from, each with 4 skills that separates their characteristics from all the other heroes. Leveling the skills grants the player the power to deal extra damage, stun, freeze, slow, buff, debuff, grow, set traps, protect, grow stronger, and many other enhancement with his/her hero. The distinct categories that distinguish the type of character the heroes are strength, agility, and intelligence. It's difficult for this game to be considered boring if you're into it when there is a plethora of ways the game will turn up due to the thousands of combination of teams that could be made with all those characters:

From what I heard, World of Warcraft (WoW) was created from the ideas and gameplay of their previous projects of Warcraft, mainly Warcraft III. A friend of mines has gotten me interested in World of Warcraft by showing me some gameplay by jumping in a PvP (that huge map that fits 40 of each side [Alliance vs. Horde]). I gotta say that it's a lot more faster paced than I thought. So much action was going on that it almost seemed like an Action RPG game.

Anyways, back to DotA. There are many items in the game that also helps your character growth by raising from Hit Points to Damage and all aspects of a characters attributes.

The objective of the game is to have your team destroy the main tower of the opposing team. Simple objective, difficult to carry out. The opposing team naturally will be aiming for the same goal. Imagining that we're entering normal mode (there are many modes to the game such as shuffling players and randomizing what hero each player gets) everyone chooses their choice of a hero and prepares to fight against legions of the opposing teams little grunts they call "creeps". I don't know why they're called that, but sometimes if you get killed by them, that's what you feel like calling them. =/ Heroes gain level by killing creeps, neutral creeps hiding around the forest, and the opposing team's heroes. You also recieve gold in the same fashion. A lot of team work is involved where you corner other players, render them useless from attacking or running away and then finally killing them for experience and gold. I know this well because I'm usually the victim of such fate as that. - -; Nonetheless, I have come to really love the game and play it whenever I get the chance. Though I do not play consistantly as some of my other friends, I have become a little better (such as not dying and using myself as a lure to draw players to their doom). =D So if you see the away message of "Vi Sitter Har I Venten Och Spelar Lite DotA", It means: I'm sitting here on ventrilo (which I actually don't use for DotA but for "Top Spin 2") and playing DotA. It is actually a song by Swedish singer Jonas Erik Altberg who goes by the name "Basshunter" who had that song rated top 10 in the music charts of Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. My sister was actually the one who shared a video of the song to me when I went to play DotA for the 2nd time. It's so catchy!!! (Video gets weird at one point. They all go clubbing when he's singing about DotA). Well, if you play DotA, want to get into it, or have questions, ask/tell me so you can join me in our DotA games.

VI SITTER HÄR I VENTEN OCH SPELAR LITE DOTA