• 1Dec 09

  Approaching the End of the Year and the Semester

  Hello everyone! Nice to see you all again!

  Well, it's been a while since I've last checked in here. How have you all been?

  Things for me have been going well. As you all know, it's already December and the end of the year is approaching quickly. This also means that the end of the first semester of my Grade 10 school year is fast approaching as well and things are getting quite busy! The teachers are certainly piling up the work done in class and the assignments that have to be finished so that they can get it in before the beginning of Christmas Break. Still, everything is very manageable.

  I have to say though, I'm actually going to miss this semester. This has been far better than anything I went through in my freshman year of high school. Classes were far more interesting (probably because two of the teachers I have are new to our school and very young too) and things went from "OK" at the beginning of the year to "a lot of fun" towards the middle. I'm definitely going to miss English class the most since that's generally the course I find most interesting.

  Of course, the end of the first semester also marks the time when we have to pick what we're taking for next year, which is honestly always a confusing and long process for me It mainly has to do with the fact that there are so many things that I want to take (one of the disadvantages of growing older is that you no longer study things from a wider array of fields) but I can only take 5 other things other than the mandatory stuff (cut that down to 4 since I'm taking French for sure). Well, that's life! In case you guys are interested, here's what I'm currently leaning towards:

  Grade 11 Physics
  Introduction to Computer Science
  World History to the 16th Century (or maybe American History, I'm not sure)
  Media Studies

  Yeah, as you can see, I'm more an English/History person. I'm keeping my options open though and taking Physics and Computer Science in case I feel like going into something like software since video games have been a pretty large part of my life.

  Anyways, enough about school I just felt like sharing since I truthfully don't have much else to talk about these days.

  My gaming has honestly come to a standstill now. I have not played ANYTHING since early November when I finished The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (great game, by the way). With Christmas Break coming up on December 22nd, I definitely need to get that fixed. I'm thinking about getting something for the PC since my brother did some massive upgrading recently and I want to make good use of it. Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect are two games I'm considering since I'm a big RPG fan. The Sims 3 (and its new expansion) is also something I've really wanted to get. My good friend is a huge fan of the series and I've had a ton of fun with the past entries in the series as well, with the main difference between us being that her computer can't handle the game so buying this would certainly be beneficial to both of us.

  Of course, if I scrounge up enough money over Christmas, then I might just scratch all of that and buy myself a PS3. A library of interesting games + a Blu-ray player definitely seems like a good investment to me. Regardless, I doubt I'll be stuck with this gaming drought for long.

  Hmm, well, that's pretty much all I have to share for now. I'll see you all again sometime soon (or not?)!

  • Posted Dec 1, 2009 7:48 pm PT
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• 30Oct 09

  It's 'Random Update After An Almost Two Month Absence' Time!

  Hello everyone! A pleasure to see you all once again.

  Wow, I can't believe I haven't made a new post since September 9th. I'm very sorry for not keeping in touch with you all more frequently but I'm afraid that the usual stuff has come up. School, my offline friends, and...well, you know. This is always the case once school starts though In the summer, I'm always keeping you guys updated and making reviews but things always slow down around this time so just bear with me and keep in mind that I'm always around here, even though I may not make it very obvious.

  So, how have you all been? I've been pretty good so far. School is treating me very nicely in particular. Things have been pretty easygoing thanks to my balanced semester and the work isn't overwhelming at all. I got quite a few new games too and things with my family and friends, while not always so smooth, have been pretty peaceful lately.

  In terms of gaming, I have a lot to talk about. It's been such a long time that I've gotten myself a few new games and I'm working on an older one that I never got to finish.

  

  You guys will remember that I purchased Shadow of the Colossus some time ago if you read my last blog. Well, now I've finished it! I have to say, I was actually getting tired of the game towards the end. I felt as if it was getting redundant and I honestly wanted it to hurry up and end already. The last colossus and the ending did not disappoint though! That was probably one of the most satisfying and interesting endings to a game that I've experienced so far. Overall, I thought it was a very solid game. If I have the time, I'll make a review for it.

  Touch Detective is one of those games that I never really had any intention of buying but I decided to pick it up because of a friend's recommendation (you know who you are ). I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by it. While it wasn't that superb, I liked it more than what most professional critics seem to think of it. It definitely has a certain creepy charm (especially the 2nd case) and it was worth playing through. I'm definitely thinking of picking up the sequel!

  Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a game that I honestly wasn't planning on buying this soon but my friend REALLY wanted to try out multiplayer with me so I went ahead and bought it. Of course, you guys know how I can be with games sometimes. I just blaze right through them to get them over with and by the time my friend bought this game, I was already at around Day 200 so she was too weak to go on any worthwhile missions with me So I just went ahead and finished the game and agreed to help her get extra stuff in Mission Mode if she needs any help. I have to say, this entry in the Kingdom Hearts series doesn't really live up to the PS2 games (which, while not the best RPGs I've ever played, were tons of fun). The story in this one was an absolute bore. I hated how, since Organization XIII was a "stealth" organization, they couldn't interact with any of the Disney characters. I admit that a big part of the appeal of console games was that I was able to traverse all these different Disney worlds and see these characters who I thought I would never see in the same game (and a Squaresoft RPG for that matter). Sure they were held together by some ridiculous story about hearts and whatever that wasn't that interesting to me but still, it was quite interesting seeing what happened when Square and Disney worked together. Much of the appeal is gone in this game though (there are zero Final Fantasy characters and a ridiculous lack of Disney with all the worlds having been present in the past games), and the gameplay isn't quite as good either because of the DS hardware limitations (controlling a game like Kingdom Hearts with the d-pad isn't exactly the most comfortable setup). Still, it's a nice attempt and still a game worth playing through. Just don't expect too much. I'm looking forward to the PSP one much more though.

  Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars (Director's Cut) was a bit of an impulse buy for me. When I even heard that there was a Director's Cut of Broken Sword, I remembered playing another version of it on the GBA (I haven't played the superior PC version unfortunately). I actually liked that one and thought that it would be interesting to see how the game would be if it wasn't held back by the GBA hardware limitations. Since the PC one isn't quite as readily available as this version, I picked this one up when I saw it. After playing through it all, I have to say that it was a very enjoyable experience! I liked those cool new animation scenes that were thrown in together with the extra Nico sidestory segments (as short as those sections may have been). Being an updated version of an old cla$$ic, I can't really go too in-depth into this. There's not much I could reveal that you couldn't find out by looking up the Broken Sword games yourself but I'll just say that I enjoyed this game and I recommend it!

  I've actually owned The Witcher: Enhanced Edition since last year but back then, despite how nice this game looked and how much I wanted to play it, our computer simply couldn't handle it well. Well, my brother did some heavy upgrading and now the game actually works pretty smoothly and I've been able to play it a lot lately. I'm really enjoying it! I'm glad this didn't end up like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to me (which was a game I really couldn't get myself to like). The way that this game pulls off the fantasy setting is very realistic and convincing. I also love how the choices you make can really have some weight to them and how the events of the game can unfold very differently based on what you do. The political tension is also something that really gripped me here. I honestly can't decide on whether I should side with The Order (the humans) or the Scoia'tael (the non-humans). They both really seem like they're doing horrible things but if I just say neutral and do nothing, I miss out on a lot of quests so I try to balance the choices I make regarding them. It's pretty difficult to stay neutral in this game though. I'll keep you guys updated on how things go with this game.

  ----------

  Well, that's pretty much all I have to say for now. I could talk about school and all the sort of stuff but I'm kind of tired so I'll stop here I hope you guys all have a great Halloween if you're celebrating it! See you all soon.

  • Posted Oct 30, 2009 7:21 pm PT
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• 11Sep 09

  School Impressions + Shadow of the Colossus

  Hello everyone! Nice to see you all once again!

  So as you all probably already know, school has started for me (it started on September 8th) so I haven't quite been blogging as much and don't expect me to make blog posts too frequently for a while since school is proving to be somewhat busy and I don't have much free time. It's the weekend though so I have time to make an update.

  I've been liking Grade 10 so far. I've been learning quite a bit and things have gone well for my first week. As some of you know, I posted my schedule two blogs ago so I thought I might add some impressions as to what I think so far of my classes (since I don't have much else to blog about )

  Principles of Mathematics: Blech, I have to start the day of with Math. This class isn't that bad and I have a somewhat good grasp of things so far (especially since everything for the first week is pretty much a review of Grade 9 stuff) but this is the class where I get the most homework. We get around 40+ questions to do everyday and I'm not looking forward to going into the more complex stuff. Still, you can't really escape from Math in life since it's necessary in a lot of things so I'll just deal with it.

  Christ and Culture: Yeah, like I mentioned before, I go to a Catholic school so I have to take a religion-centered course once a year. I'm not really liking this class that much so far. Not only is it pretty boring so far but I'm finding some of the students to be rather annoying. I still have to see how things go and whether or not my teacher does well at teaching or not.

  English: I love this class. I honestly find doing some writing assignments fun and we started with the short story unit, reviewing literary devices, and blah blah blah, the usual Reading stories and myths is interesting for me so I'm looking forward to seeing more of this class.

  Civics: Well, this is an interesting class. I actually had no idea what Civics even was before coming into this class >_> but the teacher explained that it's studying the rights and citizenship of a nation and stuff like that. Some of the stuff is interesting I guess, but my teacher is the really odd and interesting one. He really likes to stare at people and stares at me from time to time. It doesn't make me uncomfortable though so I just stare back at him and we have some staring contest for a few seconds He also talks to us about comic books, Spider-Man, Batman, The Lord of the Rings, the Wii (which he hates his wife and son decide all the games for him to get though and they get stuff like Lego Batman and Wii Fit. I'll have to introduce him to No More Heroes and Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition), his experiences from his younger years, and random stuff like that. I'm amazed we actually get anything done with how off-topic he strays but I guess I don't mind.

  Well, there you go. I know it's not the most interesting topic but I thought I might as well share what I think so far of the classes I've been having this semester.

  In other more game related news, I got myself Shadow of the Colossus!

  

  First impressions of the game so far are great. I'm not really too familiar with what the story is all about and everything since the beginning was kind of confusing but I really like the game. The isolated and desolate atmosphere that this game has is really effective since it really seems like it's just your character, his horse, and the colossi out there in the land this game takes place in. I also like how the game controls when you ride the horse (I believe his name was Agro or something like that). He's a bit difficult to control and unstable at times but he's much faster than you are. Kind of like a real horse!

  Of course, the best parts so far are definitely the colossi battles. Scaling them and slaying them is tons of fun (well, until they die and you start feeling sorry for them of course). The music that plays during the encounters with them is amazing as well! I really need to look up the composer and see if he's done any other works. Anyway, I'm only up to the big flying bird colossus so far (I think it's the 4th or 5th one, I forgot) so I still have quite a way to go, but I'll try to finish as much of the game as possible soon.

  Well, that's all for now! I'll talk to you all some other time.

  • Posted Sep 11, 2009 10:05 pm PT
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