Empyreal Effulgence

Hello everyone, time for another update. So, to start off, I am in an exceptionally good mood today. Finished midterms today 'cause we didn't get to do it before winter break thanks to some bad snowstorms. I was utterly terrified of doing my Algebra 2 midterm(because I'm absolutely TERRIBLE at math, even the basic kinds.) and I was at a D- when I last checked my grade. Later that day, I got to see my exams and I passed with a D+! All my other exams were easy, but I took my time on the math exams. All in all, did great on my finals.

Moving on to something a little more interesting like gaming, I would like to mention that I have finished Crysis 2. It was pretty damned good, the plotline was easy enough for me to follow, despite me not playing the first one. It was well designed, the levels were epic, creatures were interesting, and the gameplay was very innovative. In totality, I'd give it an 8.5/10, the only downfall being it's multiplayer. Just...no, I'm sorry but I can't play the MP, it's just not any fun.

After that, I played and finally finished Dark Void. It's a seriously underappreciated game, seriously people, I thought it was pretty good. The music was my favorite point, right next to the creative cover system. The music felt so...unique. Like tribal music mixed with a sort of battle techno. It's difficult to describe, but regardless, I liked the game. I never thought a simple jetpack could be so much fun! And some of the brutal kills are pretty sick. The plotline was actually interesting, a lot more than I thought it would be. Out of ten? I'd give it a 8/10, the only downside being it's rather dull scenery, though some of it's pretty well made. Felt kinda like Uncharted meets Mass Effect

Moving on, I've gone through F.E.A.R Files, finished both Perseus Mandate and Extraction Point on it. Fans of the series will probably like it, mainly due to it containing some of the good ol' fashioned creepy-as-hell moments the series has been known for. Another great point is the new weapons. They've really bumped it up a notch, we're talkin' mini-guns and laser rifles people, and they are FUN to rip people apart with. However, the campaigns had some downsides. Like the other games in the series, it still has the outright dull scenery. Seriously, is there anywhere a little more interesting we could be going? Also, if you don't play the original game, the first F.E.A.R, chances are you likely aren't gonna get any of the story without help from Wikipedia or something. Overall, I give the series a 7/10, seriously, it's like $3.99 at Gamestop, is that really gonna break the bank? Give it a shot if you can.

Oh, and before I forget to mention this, I recently reserved Hyperdimension Neptunia V: Limited Edition. Only had about 10% of their stock left, I was lucky as hell my Paypal actually worked, I'm gonna have every single Limited Edition in the series. Total nerdgasm, I'm so happy to have gotten that reserved.

Also, just to add for kicks, I've been reading a lot of gaming creepypasta. Don't know why though, stuff like that creeps me the hell out, but I just find some of it really interesting. Pokemon Lost Silver, Tails Doll, Killswitch, stuff like that keeps me interested. So, question 1, What's the creepiest thing you've ever seen in a video game?

Lastly, before I go back to my Xbox, I would like to mention that I have officially gotten my PSP up and going again! For the longest time the battery hasn't worked worth a shit, but one of my friends fixed it for me and has offered to help with it whenever it starts going dead again for no reason. So, question 2, what all games could the fine ppl of Forgehub recommend for the PSP?

See ya'll later people, I'mma hop back on the Xbox!

Arduous Rectification

 I've been struggling to get myself away from my novel writing process. Now that my first series is done, I still feel like I should be doing something more useful with my time besides gaming all the time. Unfortunately, according to a lot of people, I tend to overwork myself as it is and a lot of people (including my parents and girlfriend) say that a long break for gaming is just what I need. It's like trying to ween a drinker off booze. I just can't help but keep wandering over to my computer and type up notes for my next series. Honestly, the only solution I've been able to come up with is to continue with my fanfiction which I'll probably get to once I finish the rest of my games. Relaxing for me is so damned hard...

Now that I'm done ranting about my life, I'm going to do some srs talk about gaming. I got a total of 11 freakin' games for my b-day and I'm gonna have around 34 coming for Christmas so I'm going to practice summarization for this blog and the next potential one. Let's begin!

First up, I have played what is (to me), one of the most movie-like games ever, Uncharted. Seriously good game, feels like Indiana Jones meets Assassin's Creed. The only complaint I have about it is the really annoying gunfights. That's really all I can complain about, the plots are original, the characters are witty and realistic, the graphics are pretty good, and the gameplay's insane. Feels like an all out great game, save for the annoying firefights.

Next up, played the Resistance series. It's not bad at all honestly, but seriously feels like somebody directly tried to make a Halo-CoD hybrid. The enemies are a little...strange but not bad. The rifles however are the kicker to me. Some of them are pretty sweet, like the Auger, a gun that shoots through cover. All in all, if you see the trilogy in for around $40.00, go for it, it's really not bad at all.

Also played Zone of the Enders. Remember Metal Gear Solid? Yeah, same people that worked on that also worked on ZoE. But ZoE is a TOTALLY different game altogether. First off, I just wanna say this, the gameplay feels sooooo damn good! You have so much room to move around and, though you kinda gotta strategize at some parts, you are given a lot of freedom on how you want to take down enemies. My only complaint is the storyline. Needs work, well, the first one does anyways. Didn't feel complete to me. Still good though, it's in HD and it looks insanely good (I also find the names of the mechs to be interesting; each one of them's named after an ancient Egyptian god like Neith and Anubis).

Lastly, and this is my fav for Xbox right now, my girlfriend got me Assassin's Creed 3 (seriously did NOT expect her to go as far as AC3, but I feel so damned lucky to have her around!). Freakin' love AC3, it's really made advancements since the last games. The naval battles are so much fun (though, it seems that every time I play them I feel this urge to listen to the Pirates of the Caribbean theme.), and the new assassin training system is easier to manage. If you've played the others in the series, there's little reason NOT to pick this one up.

That about wraps up what's on my mind and what I've been up to as of late. I'll see ya'll sometime in the future. Later pplz!

Vapid Cadence

Hello everyone. I'm finally here to post again. Things have been busy around here, still trying to keep my grades up, my uncle's recently moved in, I went to an awesome birthday party and so much more! I'll start by talking about my social life first.

Recently, my uncle's moved in. Money's getting tight anymore so we need what we can get. It's already been pretty interesting moving him in, I got to drive my uncles truck around shipping the stuff from his house to my grandma's (where I stay), and I almost gave one of my friends AND my grandma a heart attack cause I didn't bother using roads. Oh, and I almost knocked my uncle down while he was trying to unload stuff out of the back of the truck because the stupid gearshift got jammed and accidentally put me in reverse. Now that he's moved in, my friend, Cody, and I now have a 52-inch TV that he can hook his Xbox up to so we can use system link. I'll take the 62-inch, he can take my uncle's 52-inch, and we can game til dawn in luxury without having to do anything split-screen (cause we all know how annoying it is.)

Cody had his birthday party yesterday too. Had a bonfire where our groups of friends exchanged funny stories all night, were generally perverted with most everything we said, and even got out an Ouija board. Helluva night, and I also think playing out in the woods is what got me sick. I probably didn't mention that I have myself a bad sinus infection right now that just screwed up my perfect attendance at school. I'm not complaining too much though, I get to stay home at least and play Xbox and Minecraft.

Now onto the gaming, starting with Minecraft. I've been working on the server with my friends. We're accepting applications so if you wanna join, let me know and I'll show you how. It's pretty fun, we're a little short on crew members but it's still fun hanging out and building on Minecraft. As far as my pet project goes, I'm still working out some kinks in it, but so far so good. I've decided that what was originally going to be my whole city will end up being just the southern section of it. I have so many ideas for this city, but I'll tell ya, building on modern style in Minecraft is freakin hard.

I've also been working again on Kingdoms of Amalur, finishing up the loose ends on it so I can get it back to my friend. He's been waiting on me and I've just not gotten around to finishing all of it, kinda feel bad but at least I'm almost done with it. Just need to do the Forsworn and Travelers questlines and I'm done for the most part.

After that, I'm debating on what I'll do next. I still need to finish up Bionicle Heroes and pump the achievements out of it once and for all, but I also want to get back to playing Blazblue. So many choices. I also started Clannad over and I'm going to try and get all of the paths done now.

Now for the last tidbit of gaming: I've recently taken all the gaming posters (well almost all) down from my attic and put them downstairs. Well, that'll be all for tonight, see you later people.

Breaking the Monotony

Hello everyone, I'm back finally and ready to blog after a long freakin' weekend of strange happenings, gaming, and bonfires. So, let's begin...

Let's start off with happenings going on in my life, yesterday I went to a friends 17th b-day party. We had this awesome bonfire and would occasionally go into his barn where the second floor was decked out with all sorts of fun stuff like wheelie chairs, a volleyball net, and he also had a blowdart gun that people kept trying to kill each other with. That thing got seriously fun when we kept shooting it into people's styrofoam cups that had their hot chocolate in. We literally perferated their cups and after that, we used a punching bag as a shooting target. One of the kids scared me cause practically all of his shots would land around the crotch area. Then after that, we messed around for a while with a golf cart, pretended to run someone over, tried to fit seven kids in two seats (with six boys and one girl. THAT wasn't awkward at all...), then finished the night with cake. Good times, good times...

Moving on, I recently finished Metroid: Other M. I was surprised at how close I was to finishing the game when I got bored of it. All in all, it wasn't too bad, but the voice acting was indeed atrocious. Like, seriously, Samus's voice actor made it sound like she was half braindead and on top of that, just the mere fact that she had a voice at all kinda ruined her silent hero image she's kept up for years now. They spoiled many many things with this game, but one thing I was impressed with was the game's sensemove and the Overblast. Some of those kill shots were absolutely brutal and would have me wanting more after every killshot. They captured the fast-paced and brutally epic battles of Metroid, they captured that damned well. Too bad they couldn't have at least given a way to move in first-person mode. That sucked so bad that I couldn't give words to explain how much I was annoyed about that. Rarely ever did I use that feature because it almost got me killed more times than it was worth. Overall, I give the game a C+ at least. It was fun, but not a game I'll pick up for a while.

And continuing with games, I'm going to preorder Black Ops 2. Yes, you just read that right, yes I expect to be given grief for doing it, but I don't care. I think it looks promising and I'm going to give it a shot. They've given the game quite an overhaul, and a creative touch that kinda draws me in (walking tanks anyone?). I really want to play the zombies campaign though, Black Ops zombies mode was epic and fun, and I remember back when one of my friends and I would literally play every damn day and never get tired of it. Lol, and we'd be bouncin' to trance while doing it too. I remember one day when I showed him the trance remix of the Lugia Theme and I swear, for three hours of zombie horde after zombie horde, we were freakin' invincible. I think it was the music lol.

And now we get into manga and anime. Recently I've found a few copies of the Chobits Omnibus 1 at my local bookstore and was tempted to pick it up to go along with my DVDs of the anime. I found the anime to be interesting and humorous and pretty epic towards the end. I was tempted to pick it up until I looked at the price tag on the back. I had the money with me, but since there were a few copies left, I figured I'd save my money for Black Ops. As far as anime itself went, my friend tried to show me Blue Exorcist on Crackle but my terrible connection wouldn't let me watch it, so I told myself I'd watch it on the Youtube app on my PS3 when I got the chance. Watching the first episode, I was skeptical about it. When it got to the church part I was thinking, "Oh boy...we're gonna get religious with it...joy..." but when the perverted minds rose, so did the humor and my interest in the show. I will admit, I was fooled, I really did think it was going to be a boring religious anime. I will need to watch some more of that once I finish Murder Princess.




One more thing to finish this off, recently my favorite portable CD player broke and I was forced to buy a new one. This new one is interesting, some CDs it will make a slight static noise for those loud songs, notably my Blazblue soundtracks. Guess it can't take the which is epicly epic. So that will wrap up my blog, see ya'll later!

Lead Hailstorm

Hello pplz of teh 4gehubz, sorry for the long wait, but I've just got done finishing up the campaign for Borderlands 2 and I freakin' LOVED IT!! I'll give in the details and such here in a minute. First off, I want to mention something going on in my life that has pleased me to no end.

At school...my two followers (one being the friend I mentioned in my earlier blogs and the other being a sort of trainee otaku I've been trying to...ahem...'domesticate') have finally started leaving me alone and went off to bother someone else for a while!! I've been just ecstatic thanks to that. The female friend I've mentioned before has found some other boy to bother (who is actually ironically my neighbor) and there was originally this one freshman I've been trying to open up and be more friendly to others, but I had to give up on him cause he was just a plain out nutjob that I couldn't control anymore. Both of them found better people to bother and I've just been relaxed as can be.

So anyways, enough of my homestyle ranting, I'll get on to the juicy part: Borderlands 2. This game blew my damned mind right out, no joke, totally worth a pickup. Once I started playing over my weekend, I outright refused to stop. The gameplay still retains it's classic shoot and loot style from the first but adds just the right touches in to let it feel revitalized but classic. My only complaint and ONLY real complaint is that there can be quite a few cheap deaths and despite your leveling, enemies can still do pretty damn good damage despite you clearly being the superior one, and thus taking gauntlet-running right out of the game. Seriously, don't even bother trying to run your way through, most times you'll get shredded.

As far as the storyline goes, this is like comparing a Midget Psycho to General Knoxx. Totally revamped and super interesting now. Thanks to Borderland's simple universe, you can hop in without having to know TOO many of the details. There's a fluent linear plot to it, a little basic, it basically goes by the whole "Take down the evil stereotypical tyrant" plot but it works still. There's alot of plot twists now, it was even...dare I say it...an emotional rollercoaster. Not just the storyline though, there have been many times that I've shed tears of frustration because of a really hard fight, but the storyline's got a flow now and that makes it even more interesting. On top of epic new guns and enemies, now there's a decent plotline.


*Warning* Spoilers below!! Read at your own risk!!\/

After New Haven gets burned to the ground, everyone has to move to Sanctuary, led by Roland, and after some of the plotline and slaying, there are alot of interesting turning points. All of the new Vault Hunters come into play and somewhere in the plot (around 30% in I'd say) Mordecai's pet Bloodwing gets mutated and then killed. Yes, FREAKIN KILLED. I honestly didn't see that coming at all, I was wearing my WTF face for like ten minutes after killing the damn thing. After even more fighting and progression, I got to the point of having to kill Angel, which honestly, Borderlands 1 decieved me. After finishing the first game, it showed a Hyperion satellite which I believed to be Angel, not a Siren that Handsome Jack was harvesting energy from. On top of the shock of realizing that not only was Angel a person and not some AI program for a satellite, I was also shocked that Angel was Handsome Jack's daughter and that, right after killing her, that tyrant freakin' killed Roland! I was dumbfounded and amazed that...well...THAT just happened. What a helluva ride, that plot kicked ass compared to the first game's lackluster campaign.

*End of Spoilers*

Anyways, if you haven't played this game yet, I seriously recommend it. It's got a strange genre to it, kinda like WoW meets FPS, but it's got a charm that makes it hard to put away.

Anyways, moving on to one other thing I'd like to mention. I recently got my girlfriend hooked on Touhou. I warned her that it was hard, she didn't believe me, and then came up to me at school and clearly stated that it was hard. Can't say I didn't warn her, they don't call it a bullet hell shooter for nothing.

So, I'll see ya'll later my friends!

Symfonik

Hello pplz, I'm here to update my blogzorz again. Been a strange week for me, pretty strange. Strangest part was Friday at school. A good 85% of the high school was gone so I had the whole day to just screw around. In three of my hours, we watched AFV and in one we watched Mythbusters. In the rest of them I listened to music, read fanfiction, and drank soda. Awesome times...awesome awesome times.

So...for gaming, I recently shelled out $20.00 for the Wii reinstallment of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It feels a little strange on the Wii, but it's alright, I'm getting in the groove of it pretty well. When I picked up the game at Gamestop, he asked me if I wanted to reserve a Wii U. I laughed and told him that I wasn't putting any money down on that thing until Nintendo can prove to me that they can do something creative with it, cause so far, from what I've seen from the Wii, it's just 80% shovelware, maybe more.

As far as anime and manga go, I still need to finish watching Murder Princess. My friends have been wanting me to read the manga for Atelia, and so far, I've been tempted to see if Mangafox has it. If they do, what the hell, I'll give it a shot.

That's all as far as my personal otaku stuff goes. Now for a tidbit of personal struggles. Lately I've been trying to turn a freshman in my highschool into a fellow otaku. He's picking up well on manga and getting interested in both JRPGs and anime, but here's the problem. The dude is annoying AS HELL. Very obnoxious, follows me around everywhere, and never stops talking. I know it's likely futile, but I'll still ask, is there anyone to tone down the hyperactivity of a freshman? I know, I just asked an impossible to answer question, but I figured that I'd at least try.

Oh, and for those of you that read my last blog, that friend I was talking about that was generally rude to me, well, funniest thing happened with her. She's now bugging my next door neighbor and is, for the most part, out of my hair. Hehe, my neighbor isn't exactly happy 'bout it, kinda blames me for revealing that the girl had a crush on him, but hey, not my problem anymore, far be it for me to say who she can and can't like.


Well, that's pretty much it for now, see ya'll later.

Gamereaper

Heya everybody, after a long week of delay, I finally have time to update my blog. So what goes on? A LOT of gaming, and I mean alot, in fact, I will be talking mainly about that. You have been warned, this will be a long blog. So let's begin:

First off, using my Rewards program with Gamestop, I managed to rack up enough points to get 1600 Microsoft Points for free! And with those points, I picked up Hearthfire for Skyrim and picked up the XBLA game, Quantum Conundrum. I'll start my nerd-rant at Hearthfire, for 400 points, it's not a bad pickup at all. They let you customize alot of stuff in the houses. You can have a house, extend off of that and get a Main Hall, and then three individual unique wings from there. You can also add in a grain wheel, armor bench, smelter, and other miscellaneous things of use around your house. There's also the addition of the unique clay bars that are needed for some things in the house. All in all, I find it a great way to make the house feel like your own, and on top of that, your smithing level will head way up there in no time.

As for Quantum Conundrum, it being a sort of spiritual successor to Portal, is right up my alley. Puzzles abound in this unique dimension-warping game. The idea is creatively used and the some of the puzzles are real head-scratchers. This game was very well designed and some of the humor was even reminiscent of Portal, one of the main characters being VERY much like Cave Johnson. If you like puzzle games, this one's well worth the money. I say, for 1600 MSP, I was highly satisfied with the combonation of QC and Hearthfire, a perfect 1600 points.

Oh and to continue my gaming rant (yes there's more!), I went to the Borderlands 2 Midnight Release with my buddy Cody. It was outright freezing out that night compared to the warm morning, but it was totally worth the wait. You'll meet some interesting people going to those things. I even found one of my old friends there that I rarely talk to.

Also, speaking of Gamestop, recently picked up the Special Edition of Blazblue: Calamity Trigger, for just $12.00! Honestly, for all the stuff I got out of it, I seriously considered this to be one of the best PS3 buys I've ever come across. It's a 2D fighting game with some seriously unique characters. The fighting styles all have some unique twist to them, for example, Hakumen fights using his own personal army of bugs, Rachel Alucard doesn't even fight for herself at all but rather uses her shapeshifting umbrella, and V-13 is a freakin' fighting computer virus with a mastery over altering space, time, and physics. The game is good fun if you want to put down Soulcaliber for a while. I thought, for 12 bucks, that's a deal.

We're nearing the end of my rant on games now. I recently obtained the Xbox Live Dashboard Beta. It's...strange to say the least, but I kinda like it. If you want to try something new, that's the way to do it. My only real complaint is when I saw the new Xbox Music app. At first, looking through it, I was kinda impressed by the large selection they had, they even had one of my favorite DJs on there. My complaint spawned when I saw that they were charging over $100.00 for a year membership on there. Seriously...that's twice than what you'd pay just to be a gold member!! I'm not paying that kind of money to listen to music that I can easily rip off Youtube for free. Though I seriously don't like doing this kind of thing, I like my music and I can't buy off the internet really, so I'm kinda screwed as far as legally purchasing the music. Last time I used iTunes, it basically stole $30.00 from me...

Well, now I will talk about something NON game related. Actually it's a kind of a problem I'm facing right now. Recently I made a new friend at my school, one that's a fellow otaku like me. She's talked to me for about a week now and she doesn't have many friends, so I try to hang out with her when I can, text her occasionally. The problem lies in her mannerisms.

She's said herself that the reason she doesn't have many friends is because she's rude to everyone, and at first, I didn't really believe her, but she QUICKLY proved me wrong. She keeps stealing my drinks and food and even snatched the manga I was reading from me. Then, one morning, she stole my phone from me and used it to listen to music off of it. Then she handed it back and said my music sucks. She called my girlfriend ugly, wants me to date her (which I probably wont, considering that for one: I have a girlfriend, for two: This new friend already has a freakin' child even though she's just a sophomore, and for three, she is indeed rude as can be).

I stopped texting her as much, but then she sent me a few texts saying she was worried that I was mad at her. She thought that I didn't like her at all cause she was being terrible to me, and then after not texting her for a while, I kinda felt like the jerk for being whiney about her mannerisms. I seriously have no clue how to approach this, she's either playing me as a fool or she just has a personality quirk that not many people can look past. If I applied myself, I think I'd be able to look past it, but still, DAMN she's got herself a bad frame of mind. I dunno, she's out of school right now cause she's sick, so that's giving me time to think about what to do...

Anyways, that marks the end of this seriously long blog, hope I didn't bore too many people to sleep. I'll catch ya'll in the next update.