Wow! Happy New Years everyone!

It's been a while huh? I've finally finished my first semester of Animation school and have had my first day yesterday (still feels like today since I didn't sleep yet). So far so good, I wish I did better (not that I did badly) but improvement is always something everyone strives for :)

I have been able to play some games over the holidays. I've played and finished Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for Gamecube, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for the Wii and Guild Wars: Eye of the North for PC.

As well as played a bit of Guitar Hero 1, 2, and 3, Taiko Drum Master, Mario Party 8, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, WarioWare, WiiPlay, blah blah blah... the usual party games lol

I've also had a chance to watch some Mario Galaxy and Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. The Mario isn't mine and I didn't really feel like playing it at that moment, but it looked amazing, the graphics, the gameplay, this is definitely on the summer list (if I get to do all the drawing things I've wanted to do!). I didn't play Resident Evil 4 because 1) I'm not very good with 3rd person controls on a console and 2) Ever since the first Silent Hill I've never liked playing survival/horror on my own (I'm sure playing it at midnight with 5.1 surround sound didn't help either lol). But, it was fun giving my friend advice as he slashed and shot through villagers, as well as keep him company, we were both pretty freaked lol

I'm pretty sure I've already talked about all the party games, so I'll skip over that...

I've bought Gears of War for PC, Black and White 2 and the Expansion, Age of Empires 3 and the Expansion and Tabula Rasa as well as bought some Game Boy games to be sent overseas for a friend. I bought Tabula Rasa because it was cheap, there was a sale at EB and I picked it up in the hopes to check it out later since there's a free month included. Gears, B&W and AOE were 40% off so that's pretty self-explanatory I think... luckily I convinced myself not to get the World of Warcraft battle chest for $20... I would have failed school for SURE.

Ok, so on to the games that I did play for a few days. I finally got through Guild Wars: EOTN, and the verdict was... it was alright. I had no urge to boot up my comp and log in like I did with Factions or Prophecies. The story wasn't the most engaging, but I did enjoy most of the missions. If you're thinking about getting it and aren't sure, I'd either get one of the other campaigns or wait for Guild Wars 2. I realize that this was the only expansion, but it didn't really keep my interest like I thought it would.

Fire Emblem for GC was one of the titles I kept looking at my shelf but put off playing because of god knows what. I finally played it and it was great. Same old Fire Emblem (with obvious graphics upgrades). I find the battle animations tedious and turned them off, doing that really speeds up the game (especially if you're like me and reset the system everytime one of your guys dies). I think there is definite replay value in this game, and I'll probably do that in the summer too.

The Fire Emblem for Wii was a delightful surprise! I didn't realize it was a direct sequel to the Gamecube version so when I popped in the disc sad that I'd never see Ike, Lucia, Nephanee, etc. again, there they were! And older and cooler looking too! :D Schweet! I liked the little tweeks in the game play, the option to add all the enemy attack areas together was awesome. However, I noticed a huge difference in difficulty with Normal mode in the Gamecube version and Normal mode in the Wii version... Wii version felt way more difficult, but maybe that's because all the guys you start off with get killed in 1-2 hits. Needless to say, I had to play it on easy to beat it as quickly as possible before my break ended. Oh, the controls on the Wiimote were awkward to get used to, especially after I played the GC version. But, it's a small learning curve.

I definitely want to do write ups on these games, but not sure with time constraints so I hope you guys don't mind casual banter like this. If you have specific questions, I can answer them in the comment section.

Cheers!

pic from IGN

Yay for Guild Wars!

So I recently picked up my copy of the new Guild Wars expansion! As soon as I got home I installed it (and uninstalled Tabula Rasa because it won't work for me). I haven't been able to get too far into it just because it's the long weekend and my last chance to fully hang out with friends before I feel guilty about it because of school lol.

I also had a games night on Friday and played Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, Mario Party 8, Guitar Heroes 1 & 2 and Taiko Drum. Big Brain was pretty fun but for some reason the multiplayer wasn't working how we thought it would (maybe we were doing something wrong) so we quit and played Mario Party 8.

I was also able to get Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, just because I haven't tried the Gamecube version (I know, I know, for shame) and I've heard very good things about it, although I'm wondering how much time I'll have when school starts...

Anyway, I have to go to work soon, apparently since my Manager left and I was thinking of transferring, the Assistant Manager went crazy and canceled all my upcoming shifts... so yeah, that's fun times... Suffice to say I am going to transfer, especially after that, yeeesh.

Trying to play Tabula Rasa

Ah! After so many patches I still can't play the game! Apparently, there are play session hours, which I am assuming is when the open beta is.... either that or my video card is not as great as I thought it would be... never go on the minimum requirements folks....

Playsession hours are:
US: Tuesday and Thursday night 5pm central until 2am Central and all weekend starting at 5pm central on Fridays.
EU: Monday and Wednesday night 5pm GMT +1 until 2am GMT+1 and all weekend starting at 5pm GMT+1 Fridays.

Anyhoo, maybe I'll install Sword of the New World and try that, if not back to the console for me....

In other news, might be getting another LCD monitor to replace my CRT one, annnnd possibly a new (bigger) tablet, the one I have feels too small.

Tabula Rasa Beta

So I was able to put down a pre-order on Tabula Rasa (Richard Garriott AKA Lord British of Ultima Online, Lineage II, City of Heroes/Villians) and got a nifty pre-order disc! I was scanning the minimum requirements and was worried that my computer wouldn't be able to run it!

For the curious....

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
# Microsoft Windows XP
# 2.5GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent
# 512 MB RAM
# DVD-ROM
# 5GB available HDD space
# ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 series video card with 128 MB of VRAM
# 16 bit sound card
# Broadband internet connection
# Keyboard and mouse
# DirectX 9.0c

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
# Microsoft Windows Vista/XP
# 3.5 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent
# 2GB RAM
# DVD-ROM
# 5 GB available HDD space
# ATI Radeon x1800 or NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series video card
# 16-bit sound card
# Broadband internet connection
# Keyboard and mouse
# DirectX9.0c

Anyway it took about fifteen minutes to install and now I'm just uploading the patches... I'm still waiting but I'll give a small review of the game when I've had a chance to try it out, I've been hearing mixed reviews on this game so it'll be nice to actually give it a go and see for myself.

In other news, I started playing Kingdom Hearts, I didn't get far in that game and pretty much forgot half the story so I'm gonna try and get through it this time.

Back for a bit!

Hey!

Long time no posts! As explained in the last post I am organizing everything for school, (paperwork, tuition, schedule, etc) catching up with a lot of friends I haven't seen or won't see for a while, cleaning up the house and packaging up stuff for donation and am generally still pretty busy, but it's exciting stuff! Two weeks left!

As for gaming related experiences I was able to play some Wii, mostly Mario Party 8, Wii Play and Wii Sports. I brought the Wii to two different parties and we all played MP8, so I'll have to share that experience in another post.

I wasn't able to play too much DS as I sent it with my brother to NYC to get it engraved at the Nintendo World Store, only to find that they have discontinued that service! BOO!!! But, in the meantime I found some neat software that helps the user learn to write and translate Japanese (you have to import it though) find out more from this handy dandy link to tofugu.com! Who says games can't be educational?

I've been playing a lot of Guild Wars, but not as frequently as I am waiting on the expansion. I've also got demos of Tabula Rasa (NCSoft) and Sword of the New World: Granado Espada (IMC Games) that I have to try out.

I also got a bunch of new Nintendo stuff from my friend who traveled all around Europe! When he asked me what I wanted I said "Nintendo stuff" and I actually got some, sweeeeeeet! :D

Oh yeah, and I'm re-reading the Doom series I'm also reading Making Comics by Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics, his works are extremely helpful, easy to follow and very detailed (not to mention fully illustrated!)