Winter Quarter 2010

I guess I missed making a post for January, I've been way too busy.

I actually wanted start off paying my respects to Fuzzy, our family pet chicken. He died earlier today and I was informed by my dad about it soon after when I called home. He was the last of the four pet chickens we raised. We've raised Fuzzy up to about 9-10 years and have gone through many memories with him. I'm sad he's gone, but now he can crow all he wants in heaven. R.I.P. Fuzzy (2001-Feb.5, 2010)

My sister was especially close to Fuzzy, it was her favorite. The four pet chickens were mainly my sisters to raise, though it ended up being our dad taking care of them the most. We all helped out to take care of them, and I helped take care of Fuzzy during my three years of Junior College when I was living by myself (waking up to his crowing every morning, gah...) He was an odd one, he would crow at odd times of the day and even night (yes, 4AM night...or morning, whatever).
Aside from the sad news I recieved earlier today, my work schedule has become a hurricane of madness. Dunno how many times I've said this already, but: 3 classes, 3 clubs, 3 recreations, 5 game projects, and 1 independent studies. For my classes, I have Chinese Art History, Culture Flows: Asia, and Project in Technology Hacking. It's a lot more work than I previously anticipated, but I'm hanging in there (somehow). I'm still in the same clubs: Videogame Development Club, Kendo Club (for extra practice), and Tomo no Kai. At the Anteater Recreation Center (ARC), I'm taking classes for Kendo, Iaido, and Kyudo (Japanese fencing, katana techniques, and archery respectively). For the game projects, I am mainly working as audio for the groups, a bit of design to finish up one project, and play testing a game close to being published. My independent studies is with a Professor on debugging a editor program he created for his research by making a game out of it and reporting all the errors and glitches I run into. I have a full plate to chow down on, but don't really have the stomach to take it all in (that being the time to do all of them).

Because of this crazy schedule I put myself into, I've been getting only minimum sleep. On Friday and Saturday nights, I would stay up playing videogames, yet I haven't touched any yet since I've been drawing tonight as well as blogging at this moment. (dang, 4:30AM...) I'm prepared to graduate, and I still haven't heard from the JET Program to know whether I get to go to the next step in getting into the program and get to study in Japan for a year while teaching English. I'm also thinking of interning at Blizzard Entertainment this Summer as someone in the industry had suggested me to do. I feel somewhat lost as I know what I WANT to do, but not sure what I'm good at to pay the bills (growing up sucks, lol). As much as I enjoy the "freedom" (if you could call it that), I miss having free time to experiment and work on things I like and being actually able to PLAY videogames. This quarter really is messing me up, but it's also building me up as well as I've been meeting quite a bit of people in the Interactive Entertainment Industry. I even got to go to Blizzard Entertainment for a presentation, but that's as far as I am at liberty to tell (I wanna protect the company you know?) If I did get hired for intern at Blizzard, I'd probably apply for QA for WoW or the unnamed MMO they announced last year or as a map designer for Starcraft 2. To be honest though, I really hope that Starcraft 2 gets out by the time I graduate though. I can't wait to buy the game and start making maps like I did back in High School~

Man I have a lot to blog about. Writing was something I used to hate a lot (I think) because I was forced to do monotonous assignments of reading and reporting long papers of topics I didn't care for too much. I think I started liking writing a bit by Jr. High because of an awesome teacher (I still remember his name, Mr. Holt) and became more competent in structure and grammatical syntax (though I'm pretty sure that my skills in writing from vocabulary choice to spelling is still flawed) from Mrs. Connors (if it weren't for her, I don't even know if I could have survived the rest of High School). ANYWAYS, my point is that I've realized I really like writing, as long as I'm passionate about what I'm writing. It's also a way for me to reflect upon myself and let my mind run free (and have all of you reading suffer from it, bwahahaha. Though probably no one reads my blog...)

I've finally started drawing again (here and there) and I can't get over how bad I am at it. I want to practice more, but given the limited free time I have, I usually spend on practicing on music or playing videogames ('cause I'm trying learn more about design, honest~). I'm glad I bought Acoustica Mixcraft, I've been able to improve on using audio programs and train my ears for various tasks. I really don't know what I'm going to do as a career (other than wanting to be in the Videogame Industry) because I still love drawing, I do videos, I do photography, I love music, I always have crazy designs, and I enjoy creating stories. I want to do everything right now, maybe I'll find what I'm good at and do that as my career as work and do everything else as a hobby.

OKAY, aside from all the boring and sad stuff, I am rather excited for 2010 line-up of games. 2009 was a scary year for the Industry because of the recession that caused financial upkeep problems and the termination of certain developers such as Pandemic studios. Here's what we get to look forward to this year:

Starcraft 2 - PC

Oh c'mon, who's NOT excited for this game?  I really want to get this game mainly for the map editor as it was the original Starcraft that really inspired to go into the path of the Interactive Entertainment Industry (although I always had that intention my whole life).

Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce - PS3

Missing out on an awesome $10 deal for the original PSP version, I'm excited to hear that it's being released for the PS3 with hi-res graphics.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - PS3

Not surprising as I am a big Castlevania Fan.  Being developed by another company, I am expecting epic battles, innovative gameplay, and memorable game time when it finally comes out.

Metroid: Other M - Wii

Let's just say I'm a big fan of all games as Metroid is one of them as well.  I have not play a Metroid game where I felt it was poorly made or a waste of time.  Along with Team Ninja's association with Nintendo, this game is going to be more exciting than ever before as well as shedding some light on the story.

Phantasy Star Portable 2 - PSP

Yup, second one is coming out and I haven't even started the first one.  I'm still play Universe, haven't gotten to the expansion, and I barely got anywhere on Zero.  I'm still playing Phantasy Star Online, that's how good the series is! =P

Ragnarok Online DS

Yay, they're actually bringing it to America.  According to Gamespot, it's in 10 days.  I'm so tied down with everything else, I doubt I'll be buying any new games anytime soon.

That's it for now, I really need sleep @_@; (frick it's 5:10AM!!!)

Merry Christmas!!!

It's been a while, and I have free time on Christmas day!  Yay!!!  But I don't want to take too long on this blog as I do want to get onto playing some videogames.  So I'll make everything brief.

Finals for Fall 2009 was rather difficult and taxing on my mentality, but I pulled through and studied like mad and managed to get an A+ in Performance and Camera, an A in PC Game Development, a B in Asian Art History - Indian Art (that was the hardest one), and a B- in Modern European Art History (That was second hardest).  Indian Art was really difficult since I was memorizing long words such as places called "Gangaikondacholapuram", names of objects such as "Folio from the Kalpasutra & Kalakacharya-Katha" and artist names like "Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris 'Le Courbussier'".  I can't believe I still remember it now actually, I'll probably forget when I start to memorize things for next quarter's classes.  Anyways, I went back home for winter break and at the end of the 2nd week which means I only have one week left before going back (sadness....).  I've been actually pretty busy with organizing my computer since I'm running out of hard drive, having team meetings and working on several game projects, and catching up with friends ever since I got back.  I wish I had more time to spend with my friends since I rarely get to see them.  Like some of you guys reading this right now I probably haven't seen for half a year to like 2-5 years (seriously!)  But yeah, I'm going to enjoy myself today and play some videogames and just relax and not think about work and productivity.

Short Game Reviews (yay!):

[Borderlands] (PC - FPS/RPG)

Borderlands is a First-Person Shooter (FPS) with the game having the concepts of a Role-Playing Game (RPG).  You run around, shoot people and monsters like an FPS, but you level up, gain new equipment, have skill levels, and statistics like an RPG.  The game is fast paced during battle and strategic when preparing so it has a nice balance that makes the game exciting while not being too ridiculous.

The story takes you a desert like terrain where you fight off bandits and monstrosities of epic proportions to liberate the planet from the greed and corruption of those who seek power for themselves.  Taking the role of a hunter, soldier, siren or Berserker, you and 3 other friends fight off hordes of enemies, fight for awesome loot, and try out 87 Bazillion Guns!  The game is challenging, and it does affect the gameplay when one player is significantly higher in level than the other, but if you can find some friends who are around the same level who can cooperate with you or at least kill off the enemies, then you're sure to have an great experience playing this game.  I play as a siren btw, I love assassinating~

Overall: 9/10

[Phantasy Star Zero] (NDS - ARPG)

I raved about this game quite a bit and for good reasons too.  4-Player co-op wireless play with 3 other people with the ability to play with others online.  Online play doesn't even have lag!!! (for the most part).  Over 300 weapons, tons of quests, a fair amount of customization, Phantasy Star Zero is a game worth buying providing hours upon hours of gameplay.  The story differs depending on which race you play choosing from a Human, Cast and Newman like in the previous Phantasy Star games, but they relate to each other in some way or another.  A period of time called the "Great Blank" puts all the people into curiosity of what happened to the Casts who've been turned off and suddenly loses all memory of the past and the conflicts between the newmans and humans.

I played the game for about 10 hours and still have quite a bit to do.  I wouldn't be surprised if this game provided me with over 300 hours of gameplay if I had the time.  I mainly played over the internet with my friend and did a few quests, got new weapons, and killed off boss monsters.  It was really exciting getting to play with others online who had Japanese versions of the game.  Whether they're from Japan or not is questionable, but it was great to know I was playing with people from around the country.  The biggest thing I have against the game is that in the American Version, they took out the original Japanese title theme song that Hatsune Okumura wrote and sang and replaced with some generic theme.  They did the same exact thing with Shining Tears on the PS2.  Other than that, the backgrounds in the game look flat but can be sorta convincing of things looking further away.  The timing in the combo can be a bit difficult to get used to, so that could affect gameplay.  And like the predecessors before PSZero, you're going to struggle against certain bosses so prepare to go train/grind somewhere.  As long as you do quests or play with a friend, the game will continue to be interesting.  This is one of those games where people will either love it or hate it.

Overall:9/10

[Haze] (PS3 - FPS)

Good thing: unique game mechanics with the nectar and playing dead along with 2-player co-op split screen / 4-player co-op online.  Bad thing: system is so broken when going against enemies in harder difficulty levels, storyline starts off good but really makes you gag at the end.  To make things short, this game had great potential in many ways but fails at some point and makes you wonder why you're playing the game.

You start off the game playing the role of Shane Carpenter who signed up with an organization called Mantel who fights for the good of man.  Mantel's greatest weapon is nectar, their drug that's injected into them everyone once in a while and can be controlled during the game that enhances vision, health regeneration, speed, and power.  You're sent to fight off a group of people for the sake of ethnic cleansing and later find out that Mantel is actually trying to steal the ingredients from the people for profits and that nectar is actually killing the soldiers who use them.  You then fight for the victims you were initially killing and have the ability to play dead, which doesn't always work since they keep shooting your body.....I won't complain too much since I bought the game for $7 and it had co-op so I could play with my sister, but I wouldn't give the game that much merit.

Overall: 7/10 if you can play online, 6/10 if you play offline.

[Wii Music] (Wii - Music)

This game didn't do too well in sales, and it has been identified being more of an advance toy or program rather than a game.  It was for sale for $20 and I already heard about the bad reviews people gave about this game, but I really didn't want to give up this opportunity like I did with Ikaruga all those years ago when it was $20 at Costco (now it's like $70-100 on ebay, can't find it for Gamecube anymore).  Well, the game was worth those $20 because the game, although very childish in many ways, is actually very interesting and does a very good job in just letting the player have a good time without actual failure.  There are mini games such as pitch perfect and maestro where it tests your sense of rhythm and pitch identification where you can challenge for higher scores or even lose, but it doesn't really force the player to be in an environment where there is a winner and a loser.

You get to choose from 50 songs and 60 instruments and experiment with each one using the motions you would for that instrument.  It may be a turn off for those who are not very interested in music and rhythm as it may not sound as nice if you cannot grasp the concepts of a steady beat and understanding styles.  I don't like the fact that the instruments sounds extremely MIDI-ish and computerized, but the amount of things you can do in the game makes up for that.  I haven't tried playing with friends yet in a custom jam, but I'm pretty sure it'll be fun since a lot of my friends are music orientated.  You actually don't need any skills in music if you just want to pick up a wii-mote and start jamming away on the improvisation mode where you control the song anyway you please.  I wouldn't mind calling this game an advanced toy, because it was a lot of fun just trying out all the instruments.

Overall: 8/10

That's all for game reviews, and here are 2 free games I wanted to mention before I go:

[I Want to Be the Guy] (PC - Action Platformer)

This game is unforgivably difficult for ANYONE to play.  But if you're one of those patient people or a hardcore gamer who wants to prove themselves, this game is for you.  Created by one guy using actionscript on flash, he created a game that has a surprise in every room of the entire freaking game.  The game's concept is built around trial and error where you fail over and over until you've memorized every aspect of a room.  It has a great system for making the player try over and over again because it shows that it's possible, but you just got to do it correctly.  Try it now: http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/downloads.php

[Spelunky] (PC - Action Adventure)

Spelunky is a lot more doable than IWTBTG, but it doesn't mean it's easy.  The game's concept is built around generating random caves the player goes through while collecting as much loot as possible.  You have several items and can gain a lot more along the way.  This game also has a lot of surprises that will piss the player off by showing that something is possible, but you gotta start over and do it again if you fail.  Lots of hours gone by playing this game: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=4017.0

That's all for now, I'm finally going to go play videogames, I took much longer than expected.  Merry Christmas~