alpha_two

It's been a decent week off work. And I have yet to write a blog once! Who would have thought!

Initially, I had taken the time off for Modern Warfare 2. Yes, a whole week, but by Thursday, it was clear that the time off was for the impending cold/flu/whatever the hell it is that made me sicker than I should be.

So that's my excuse. Good enough?

Back to Modern Warfare 2. Wow. Just wow.

Oh. Minor Spoilers below **********************

For the Record, I did not "enjoy" the "No Russian" scene. I did not shoot the bystanders, just blindly at the wall and such. I only lobbed grenades at the riot shield cops once it was clear that the game wasn't moving ahead without my involvement. It was a well executed scene, it sets the story up and creates the appropriate tone for every player for the remainder of the game. However, I still can shake the feeling that a) it felt forced to include such a scene so that they can top themselves from the story in CoD4 and b) it was a linear story moment that could have been presented in any other fashion that would have been more fitting.

I think what's more interesting is the parallels that they kind of draw between the two games. The in city battles in CoD4 stands in contrast to the suburb fights in MW2: Most players probably weren't too shocked, or even impressed with the idea of fighting in middle eastern cityscape; but the suburbs of middle America? I bet more people did a double take of the scenery before starting the mission. Is it a social commentary from Infinity Ward? I'm not sure. It's still interesting to think about it though.

***************************End Spoilers******************************

I think the other thing that stuck me the most, after finishing the main campaign, and dabbling in both Spec Ops and Multiplayer (~3-5 hour in each) is that the amount of polish, the amount of focus testing, specific level and scenario testing, tweaking every possible player encounter is clearly evident. It scares me the amount of time and money that they must have spent to achieve such quality. Outside of Uncharted 2 this year, I think it'd be very hard for anyone to point to another game that delivers the full package with such care.

Yeah. I'm that impressed.

Wow. Talk about not being punctual. But this time, I have an good excuse.

Over the last two weeks, I've been thinking about what I can write about me, and gaming. But then I realized that by doing so, there'd be no separation from my random musings (or just angry bitter daily reflections), and what I wanted to write about games. So here we are.

Two blogs.

I know what you're thinking right now...

If I can't keep up with one, how does making two help.

Short answer, it doesn't.

Long answer, hell if I know.

In case you're still here, I'm moving "Confession of my gaming mind" to http://mygamingmind.blogspot.com/. With any luck, I'll probably get my first post up today. And this will remain the place where I randomly talk about random things in an incoherent order.

So. Trying to post a new update on a routine has failed. Last post: Jan 16. HAHA. Let's try this one, again. AGAIN.

And instead of random rants from me, and things I see, let's see if making it topical makes any more "enticing" for me to update on a more frequent basis. As I had said on Twitter, might as well make it about games.

It's a good thing it's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada.  I'll actually have time to think about what to write about, or just play more games...

The Club Nintendo gift arrived:

Fits 4 Wii Remotes, or 2 Wii Remote + 2 Nunchuck. Pretty cool, I'd say.

I'll think about getting a second one.

So, Season 7 has started with the 4 hour special, and it does not disappoint. Sure, it won't top off the nuke and taking out Black Jack that was last season, but then again, this hopefully won't fizzle out like the end of the last season, where everyone was the mole. It's nicely paced, high tension throughout each hour for now. Let's just hope the subplot goes somewhere too (because the shit last year was retarded). Kill count is definitely low right now, but the entire FBI escape sequence is perfect MGS fodder.

Enough about 24. You know what isn't awesome? iPhone cases by GRIFFIN. The second hard case cracked. Go figure. 0/2. I'm buying someone else next.

Last night NIN released a torrent of 3 of their shows, recorded in HD, as unedited RAW footage for fans to edit, mix and remix. Sadly, with my shitty bandwidth cap, there's no way I'll see that. Ever. Hopefully someone will be kind enough to create a Blu Ray burnabale version for me to download.

First snowstorm of 2009 happening outside right now. Roads are lightly covered, but it seems to be picking up.

Sad news with EGM being gone, and 1up basically dismantled. It was the better podcast that made my commute tolerable. What the hell am I going to do now? Most of the personalities are gone, so UGO is obviously not getting my visits. Meh.

I guess it can best be summed up with: "I guess the bright side is that I still have a job".

a) I didn't have to get up early in the morning.
b) There's no commuting time.
c) It's not boring.

On the bright side, I do find all this time a good use for me to listen on all my backlogged podcast. So that's a good thing, right?

So, a fun new years resolution. This time, I'm going to make it public, so please do hold my feet to the fire for any screwups. Unless they are totally not doable. :P I've purposely waited a few days to see if they will stick within the first few days of the year. Most seems doable.

1) Finish more games instead of buying more games: 2008 was a disaster when it came to the completion ratio, this year, the goal is to finish more games (I won't bother quantifying it, because this will be easy with #2).

2) Buy less games, specifically, no more than one new title per month. (We'll see how this one goes when the clusterf*** of November 2009 happens)

3) Spend less this year. In fact, I'm probably going to set a lofty goal for savings. You never know. In fact, writing a budget down is really making me dread how I'm going to do this.

4) Exercise more. The elliptical in the basement is not going to use itself, so I might as well. This also gives me a good reason to burn off the movie/blu-ray backlog.

5) Be happier in general. So instead of being angry at everyone and everything, I'm just going to tune out things that angers me. I wonder if they'll notice.

6) Update the website more often. Hopefully next week.

7) Blog more. So this post will be the start.


Wonder how this list will fair at the end of 2009.

You're on notice. 2008 sucked. You better be good.

Holy shit I just played a Worldwide game of Prey the Stars against someone Japanese, probably a kid.

And I was kicking their ass.

Then they quit.

Boo.

The game comes out today! But wait, if you are in Canada, looks like you're going to have to wait another week. Sorry. I found out the hard way too.

Oh hey. Just beat the game and got to the credits:

IGN Podcast on next week's review of PTS:

"Editor 1: Sigh"
"Editor 2: That game was terrible"
"Editor 3: It makes me angry playing that game"

Please send your angry letters for the vindictive AI this way. Thanks!

Haven't updated the blog for the longest time, so this is as good of an excuse as any.

So yeah. Start of new day.



Let's hope the Convention center has internet access.

Some fun digging revealed this:

Today was the last day. Thankfully I did get my first and last game in, however, never got my memory card in to unlock new stuff. :(

What was weird was with the 6 plays I had, I set 3 of the new records. Wondered how much it was being used.

I also really wonder how much it's going to cost for the machine itself.

So, Funland Arcade in downtown Toronto is closing this Thursday. You can read all about it here. I can say I've never stepped foot in it before, but I've always wanted to see it ever since I heard about them having an F-Zero AX arcade machine.

Guess what I found:


Some screens:





Good times.
Lets hope when it goes for auction, it goes somewhere close in Toronto.

Dark Knight.

How Awesome? So Awesome.

GO WATCH IT!

Such an expensive yet enticing proposition. So, should I do it or not? Given that Rogers does have this tempting 6GB for $30 deal, it's actually a lot better than the deals before.

However, what would be my point of using it? NeoGAF? MSN? Facebook? Is that really all there is? Am I going to be torrenting on that thing to kill all 6GB?

I guess I have till Aug 25ish to decide.

So last night I mentioned that Amazon decided to cancel an order. It's for the Metal Gear Solid 4 LE Guide/Artbook.

So I checked Prima Guides, the ones who makes them, and they linked to their Canadian Distributor: Random House. The order went through, so great, I thought...

Just now, an e-mail came through, saying they canceled it because they were out of stock. This is just stupid. If you know you can't sell any, why put it as a buy it link?

All this, because EB, for some god forsaken reason, decided to not carry guidebooks just as this comes in. A little more searching leads to an even more interesting discovery: only 43,000 copies were ever made.

So, what's the final solution? eBay.

${A lot more than I expected} later, it's coming!!!

1) I got tickets to The Dark Knight for next Friday already, but I realized that I still haven't seen the first one. Weird. In fact, I still haven't seen a lot of the latest must see ones, like Iron Man. Somehow that makes me feel good, at least makes my wallet feel good.
2) Amazon. You have to stop canceling my orders. Don't promise that you have a guidebook if you can't deliver. *Fingers crossed that someone will deliver soon!
3) Rock Band 2! Woo! SO AWESOME!
4) E3 is in a week, I'm not sure if I care...
5) Anyone feeling sick of work, yet somehow still need to get in on the weekend? Somewhat masochistic I guess, and can only balanced out with lots of drinking. (*waves at Rodney)