Real Summer Break

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

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

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

A taste of what Summer could be like

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

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

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

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

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