'

I was a bit worried about how a RTS would play on a console, but I have to say this game isn't too bad considering.

Worried...cause when you think of comparing a keyboard to a console controller, obviously lacking in buttons. I do find myself wishing I could create groups since my army tends to be split up. Or the ability lock certain characters.

"You! Don't move until I go through an attribute to unlock you. So even if I "ALL UNITS" you don't move!!!!"

Making my way through Legendary campaign at the moment not too bad. Though legendary on multiplayer vs computer, holy krappo! My butt hurts thinking about it. Ow.

BTW, was there a way to get Forge into a warthog when he is on foot? I haven't figured that out yet. Was it in the beginning tutorial? I don't remember. And I only breezed through the book once. I rarely read them things! I wonder if I would be a more efficient gamer if I actually read the game books?

Criminy! The cinematics are awesome.

But playing RTS makes me want to bust out Blizzard games. Starcraft in particular, I don't think I ever played campaign all the way through. Or the first two Warcrafts now that I think about it. I vaguely remember WC2....

I slightly digress...

FOR THE HORDE!

Labels: Halo Wars, RTS

Effing hilaroius. Love it. Everyone mentioned that I should check out any of the Lego games (StarWars, Batman, Indiana Jones...) I picked up this game at Fry's since it was on sale.

There is so much replay value in this game. Ridiculous amounts of things you find yourself unlocking. Though I'm glad I don't have to run around desperately trying to find orbs.

Though I was never really a fan of sharing a camera while playing two players. Camera never pointed in the direction you wanted and you always relied on your partner to keep the camera moving. Unfortunately this is the style camera we have for one of the games I am currently working on. Which I would say what it is, but it won't be announced until next week sometime I believe.

I'll probaby make a new post after the announcement.

So, after playing through the story mode it told me that I only finished some 40 something % of the game! WHAAAT?! Must....unlock...more...extras!

I think I am going to go out and find the other Lego games.

And just because this is awesome.

Labels: Fry's, Lego, StarWars

Well I went to the West Coast Wigout a few weeks ago and it was great! A lot more people than last time. And yet again Game Music 4 All picked a hilariously awesome line of artists. Though we were disappointed Zealous1 couldn't make it this time around. The Megas were awesome of course. Thats me and Sanrda trying to be groupies.



I also wanted to talk about Zombies today. Why? Because they are brain-munching goodness. I dunno I've always been interested in zombies. I am definitely scared of them, though not terrified. At least, not yet.

They are just interesting creatures. I LOVED the remake of Dawn of the Dead but admittedly I have not seen the original or any of the other movies of that series. I also love 28 Days Later, though they aren't exactly zombies all the way, at least...not in the beginning. They are just bezerkers really. But I'll still classify that as a zombie movie. I recently saw 28 Weeks Later and I have to say the more I think about it the more I hate it. They just tried to force way too many situations to make the story work. Ugh, I don't even want to go into it.

I was turned onto The Walking Dead in college. Though I still only have the first 3 or 4 books I want to read more. Plus I love the art style.

Which leads me to wanting Left 4 Dead. Seriously, I have only heard good things about this. I hope Santa brings it to me for Christmas. Not that it would be a big deal if he didn't because either way I think I'll get the game. What I'm torn between is getting PC or 360.




I was reading a friend's blogger about deleting old posts. I advised her against it because you never know when you need a good laugh. She mentioned that there were things that she wanted to forget. What I told her is that years from now you'll want to look back and see what kind of state of mind you were in. Were you crazy? In love? In hate? Either way you'll see all the fun and not so fun things that will give you a laugh.

So it made me think about my old online journals. I have some old posts that I do not want to get rid of. I'm trying to figure out the best way to consolidate them to one blogger...this one honestly. What is the bets way to do that? Copy paste each one? :( Anyone have any suggestions before I start doing something ridiculously tedious?

Another part of my plan is all the photo links I have...save them to one online photo album. I noticed while going through the old posts many pictures are missing. Either I took the whole album down or other people removed the photos I was linking to. I think what I'll do is go and find ALL (ugh...) those pictures I linked to and add them to my gmail photo album so then at least they will be associated with this journal.

I think this project will take me about a year or so to do.

Labels: 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, Game Music 4 All, Left 4 Dead, West Coast Wig Out, Xanga, Zombies

SO the past few days I've been playing Gears of War 2. So far I like it. So far as in I've played Hardcore which did not appear so hard (with co-op) but I am playing it now on Insane which feels the way Hardcore should have been.

The levels feel so big its great. Actually what I REALLY like about it is that you have the ability to hit your enemies at different angles which makes co-op more enjoyable. Which makes me feel this is the way Army of Two should have felt like.

Though there are some nasty bugs (like any game) that can be a pain in the arse.
-Like when me and my partner were trying to carry a large bomb thing in between us. After we were lifted on a platform to walk into the building we were unable to move for like 5 minutes. Actually we walked in circles at the same exact spot. I'm not entirely sure how we did it but we managed to wiggle our way out of whatever we were stuck on. (I wanted to show a picture of Marvin, from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, walking around in circles but I couldn't find one.)
-While fighting the giant fish; sometimes one of the characters (seemed to be Fenix) would get stuck floating in the air.
-Oh god one of the big ones for me was while riding on the Reavers. There were times were I do not believe I was actually shooting anything, and if I was it definately was not showing me. When you turn to the back of the Reaver your character should switch to the gun behind him. Well Dom must be afraid of heights because as soon as he turns around to get on that back gun he would IMMEDIATELY turn around and face forward. If I started shooting in this direction I saw no bullets. If I tried to face forward you could see his body play the animation of him moving from the back gun to the front gun but still no bullets coming out of my gun. Soooo, I don't think I actually did anything in that level.
-I don't like getting pinned by cars either. At one point I was up in a garage while my partner was down on the street. I was looking over the edge to help him out when suddenly an animation played of the garage falling down onto the street. Well a car slid and pinned me to the rail so I couldn't move. Lame. Also! on the same level I was trying to pick up ammo but accidentally picked up a gun. So my SNIPER RIFLE flew off the second story and onto the floor below where I could not retrieve it. My arms aren't that long.

Okay back to some good stuff. Moving from one section of the map to another felt pretty seamless. A lot of the time I would walk backwards and say, "Hey when did this get cut off?!" And all the rubble fit nicely into the level.

Oh though there is one thing about the story I wasn't entirely happy about. I mean, not a big deal, but they really shouldn't have shown the worm so early. They didn't need to make it that obvious.

The first Gears felt kinda short, but this one is definitely an improvement. Visuals of course are good. Though I do randomly see a texture seam, or NO texture at all. It was a void car. I personally like the water and rain.

There was one level now that I think about it where you are driving the tank in a dark cave. It seemed pretty pointless. I mean I was excited seeing the tank at first hoping I could drive it but that level seemed meaningless. There was nothing. We drove through it and shot three Corpsers. Woo?
*EDIT: Okay so I get they have to drive down...down underground....but still doesn't make it less boring.

And the boy here is whining that its late and I have to go to bed. G'night.

Labels: games, Gears of War 2

The last concert I attended, "Level up! Level 2!" was pretty fun. A bit stuffy, but the music definitely made up for it. I'd probably feel more awkward realizing I was in a room full of gamer geeks, but then its almost like being at work.

Though whats going to roxor about this concert is that it will be an all day event pretty much. Noon to 1 in tha morning. If you look at the list of performers it looks like its going to be a day of awesome.

And for the whole 3 people that I believe reads my blogger, any of you guys want to go? $10.

Labels: Music 4 All, West Coast Wig Out

For a split second I thought, "Wouldn't this make a great tattoo?!"

Went to the Master Classes at Siggraph this year. I went this past Monday where Pixar came and talked about Storyboarding/Story-telling and animation. It was pretty long. The first 2 or 3 hours were a bit boring because I didn't have a paper or pencil to write with. Then later we found out that if we PASSED the door we entered in there was a table with writing utensils and paper. So I managed to take some notes and doodle a few drawings.

Later we went to the AutoDesk after party at The Shrine. There we sat for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours watching them present their new versions of their products.
Which was great n' all but ga-damn, we just wanted to get to the booze already. I guess it was just slightly frustrating that we were sitting there so long, waiting to either release our bladders or waiting to fill them up, but the last presenter (which for some reason I can't remember who it was exactly) said, "now you'll get to see our short 30 MINUTE video..." wtf. I mean they showed us some good stuff that they did (the Disney Russian Alien short was pretty awesome) but man...we were already pretty antsy.

Actually what was funny was that after we all did get out of the theater and into the hall to get to the bar, i decided to wait a few minutes before using the restroom. I mean, if the hall full of people who had been sitting on their ass for 4+ hours had any indication i could ONLY imagine what the bathroom was going to look like. Which by the way was pretty empty. I forgot the whole event was some 80%+ male.

There were some pretty neat things that they showed us. Particularly that it looks like the movie industry really wants to get back into 3D-glasses movies. I mean, they redid a section from Kung-Fu Panda (actually a bunch of movies) in 3D and it looked AMAZING! I would have LOVED to see the whole movie in 3D. They showed us how to set it all up in Maya 2009 and in Combustion....almost a click of a button seriously.

Even though the classes were pretty neat (learning that there will be a Toy Story 3) and the after party was bitchin' I really wish I could have gone to the actual expo...I need swag!

Man, trying to lock multiple rings is crazy hard.

Also, I noticed there is some serious frame rate drops while playing. I'll be kicking Galdes' butt and suddenly its like everything is in slow-mo! Usually with the boss characters or with 4 other enemies the frame rate drops. Sad.

Or what I definitely love is when my character randomly falls through the world. Good thing falling through the floor doesn't cause too much damage.

On another DS related subject, I got my mom one for her birthday! I think I might have created a monster. :D She has a huge list of all the DS games she wants now. And she loves PictoChat. I was considering getting the family a Wii, but I'm wondering if I should just buy some DS games instead?

I was looking at one of my friend's facebook pages and had noticed someone left a comment on his wall about an interesting site. So I decided to take a look and now I have something fun and quick to do in between exports!

TypeRacer

Someone declare this day (or actually Saturday 4/14) a holiday! I finally got myself a motorcycle. Its a used 2005 Vulcan 500. Picked it up at Temple City Power Sports in San Gabriel.

There is a cute story that goes with this motorcycle already. When we arrived at the dealer it was sitting there outside next to the other used vehicles. Looked at it, not too shabby. Definately a lot better looking than the last Vulcan we looked at. But unlike the last Vulcan we looked at we hoped that this one sounded much better. Unfortunately it would be 7 hours before we could hear it.

"Let me go get the key!"

After about 2 hours of trying to find the key they decided that it may be lost for good and that they were going to call a lock smith. After about a half hour or so they decided to go to a lock smith because it was just going to take way too long for one to arrive.

As we were waiting I tried on every single women's jacket (and some mens) and gloves on at the store. What was even more amazing was that I found a pair of gloves that managed to fit me.

"Here, try these ones on, I haven't had one person fit them yet."

It feels a little tight around the palm area, but everything else seemed to fit okay. And if I do manage to loose a bit more weight, it'd probably be in my fingers.

The guy with the key finally came back, but the motorcycle still wasn't running. They took it out back and futzed around with it. What took so long for them to troubleshoot the problem was that the guy who does the troubleshooting either wasn't there or was busy with another bike and they had to wait for him. But when the guy did manage to find that something was wrong with the battery so they had to repalce it.

Chano and I decided to walk around even MORE in the tiny store, trying on every single motorcycle and atv they owned. Did I tell you it was blinkin' hot as all hell that day? 100+ So we were mostly limited to the motorcycles inside the building. We did go outside for a bit here and there but not too often. And unfortunately we kept thinking they were ALMOST done with the motorcycle so we stuck around. Also, there was no where to walk to either.

Finally after they started putting the motorcycles away to close up shop the motorcycle was ready to be looked at. We determined that it ran a little rough but we thought because it had to do with how LONG the bike must have been sitting there on the lot. About an hour after the shop closed was when we put the motorcycle on the truck. For our dedication? we each got two tshirts, free brakes for the bike, and a discount on the merchandise we bought from the store.

7 LONG hours.

I was shooting a coworker with my NERF gun. The first two shots weren't very powerful but I managed to bounce the balls off the floor and ping him in the leg. The last shot however was so over the top that it went flying between two desks. I decided that I was going to retrieve my ammo after the lecture that I was supposed to be paying attention to.
During the remainder of my lecture though the coworker I was shooting decided to pick up one of my ammo off the floor and chuck it at me! That's cheating damn it! Thats like picking up a used bullet off the battle field and throwing it at your enemy in hopes that it may bury itself deep within their gut. Lame!
After the lecture I went to where I overshot my third round and it is no where to be seen. I think it fell into a different dimention. I should have followed the three-second rule and went after it before it fell into the portal of oblivion. Maybe it'll show up one day.

I also started yoga this week. I will be a yogi two times a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) for the next thirteen weeks at work.

Boy am I sore as all hell. First day wasn't too bad really. Definately got stretched out, and the next day I was sore behind my legs. Though some spumoni at The Old Spagetti Factory definately helped. Yum!

Second day, it was a different teacher and damn did she work us! My shoulders, legs, back....ouchie. But today's lesson was more on muscle toning rather than stretching.

I'm really excited about yoga actually. I had tried it at home (using the exercisetv) and I didn't really get into it. Mostly because I was afraid of hurting myself and it wasn't very interactive. But I can tell that these classes will seriously help with my back me thinks. Building muscle in the front side and backside will definately help relieve pressure. Loving the meditating though. Mmmm.