• 14Jun 13

  Next Gen For Me

  Next Gen for me:

   

  Well its been a very long time since my last blog, and this will be a bit of a long one given its games centric.

   

  Yesterday, I bought and built a gaming computer finally. My build is as follows:

  1.      Logitech k260 wireless keyboard and mouse

  2.      DVD player/burner

  3.      1 terabyte Seagate 7200 rpm hard drive

  4.      cooler master Trooper case

  5.      cooler master heat sink 

  6.      Sapphire HD Radeon 7950 Vapor-X (Graphics card)

  7.      Kingston Hyperx 8 Gigs of Ram

  8.      Sabertooth 990 FX R2.0 Motherboard

  9.      Thermaltake 850W Gold certified power supply

  10.   AMD FX 8350 Vishera 4.0 Ghz, 18 MB Total Cache

  11.   Windows 7 Pro

  12.   Wireless Adaptor put in
  
  6 fans in all, can control it manually or automatically 
  Option to add another 8 gigs of Kingston HyperX, another graphics card, hard drives, blu-ray drive

  Still putting some games on it, see how it really fairs for me this summer. If my PC gaming experience just turns into a situation where Im constantly tinkering to get games to run on them then my backup is the PS4.

   

  My job has me workin 10-12 hours a day. And then I got the weekend. So time is short for me, so in between working and life, I dont got a lot of time in my free time to be spending tinkering When i wanna play a game - I WANNA play a game.

  Often during the week Im living on the rigs in the desert, and while I dont need to take my laptop, I do take with me 3 electronic devices in my backpack carryon. The Ipad Mini (books, a few movies, and lots of comics, and the odd game like Mass Effect : Infiltrator will get Deus Ex : The Fall), the Nintendo 3DS, and the Playstation Vita. I didnt think itd happen, but lately Im way more of a handheld gamer then I am a home-system gamer.

  Anyways, gonna try to keep this short:

  Watching E3 this year, I knew where my load was gonna lead me to play:

  1. PC/PS4 (at home)
  2. Vita/3DS (at night on the rigs at work)
  3. WiiU (for occasional old Nintendo nostalgia fun) + PS3 (Legacy console with 100+ games for it)

  If PC works out best for me as I hope from my massive initial investment into it then Ill be going PC mostly. If not, then its PS4. Fairly simple.

  Games I was most excited for per platform (colored very excited, bolded excited, normal looking forward to playing):

  PS4:

  1. Metal Gear Solid V : Phantom Pain
  2. Infamous : Second Son
  3. Killzone : Shadow Fall (launch game Ill get)
  4. Destiny
  5. Final Fantasy 15 (wont get too excited, because how much longer is the wait)
  6. Kingdom Hearts 3  (same as FF15)

   

  PC/PS4:

  1. Battlefield 4 (havent decided if I wanna get this on PS4 because I prefer the console space for FPS multiplayer)
  2. Batman : Arkham Origins
  3. Transistor
  4. Mirrors Edge 2
  5. Wolfenstein : New Order (never been a Wolfenstein fan, but this game has DEFINITELY got my attention)
  6. Watch_Dogs
  7. The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt
  8. Assassins Creed 4 : Black Flag
  9. The Witness
  10. Splinter Cell : BlackList
  11. Call of Duty : Ghosts (dem dogs man, nah.. Ill likely pick up just for its singleplayer because Ive loved every single one of their single player campaigns however short they are since COD4)

   

  Vita:

  1. Killzone : Mercenary
  2. TearAway
  3. Rayman : Legends
  4. Batman : Arkham Origins Blackgate
  5. Final Fantasy 10 HD (when the hell is it coming?)
  6. Dragons Crown

   

  3DS:

  1. Mario and Luigi : Dream Tea
  2. Legend of Zelda : A Link Between Worlds

  WiiU:

  1. Wonderful 101 (I will buy the WiiU when this comes out)
  2. Donkey Kong Country Tropical Thunder
  3. Super Mario 3D World 

   

  For a full list of stuff Im looking forward to playing is on my wish list page on my profile, but those are the games Im most looking forward to.

  I will not be getting rid of my PS3 and its 100+ games I got for it, I still go back and play the infamous, Uncharted, Journey, among many other games. The last game for my PS3 is likely to be Beyond : Two Souls, and Ill wait for GTA V to come on PC.

  Aside from that, I started playing Last of Us, will be getting Remember Me on PC soon. Life is good, money is good, time is short for games . thats the irony.

   

  Theres a lot I could say about Xbox One, I like Halo series, I thought Sunset Overdrive, Ryse : Son of Rome, and Killer Instinct look fantastic. But heres the thing, between the platforms I just said Im gonna play on PC/PS4/Vita/3DS/WiiU/PS3 there is no time for Xbox One, let alone adequate time for all the consoles I WANNA play on. Nevermind that I dont care for Kinect, nevermind that I dont watch TV or that that neat-o TV tech wont work over here in Saudi, nevermind that I dont support this restrictive/poorly explained DRM business they got going on.

  Sonys had and got the exclusives that I love and appreciate, Nintendo wins the kid in me, and PC will finally be the muscle gaming machine that I can now afford to spend on.

   

  Thats it for me, how about you guys and gals? Whats got you excited for next gen? 

  • Posted Jun 14, 2013 12:29 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 27Mar 13

  Finally got a job

  after nearly a year of looking for work, i have got a job. It took going to Saudi Arabia, making some phone calls to people to get my resume looked at, but i got one.

   

  I am now a Safety Supervisor at Nabors Arabia, of Nabors Drilling International Limited. Been working there for two weeks now, doing a lot of the paperwork and training, but it's getting me fully up to speed on my responsibilities. 

  work long hours from 7 AM to 5 PM, 5 days a week, with a ton of traveling. 

  I was very happy to learn that the company i work for is the largest drilling contractor in Saudi Arabia, running some 36 Rigs, 32 on land, 4 offshore. Eventually they're gonna get me 5 rigs i'm supervising over, while helping out with the others whenever they need assistance. Each rig has a safety officer, and sometimes another safety supervisor who is passing through (rotational ones - i'm regular, so we tend to work differently). 

   

  The perks?

  the starting pay is excellent, even when considering that my company is notorious for paying the least, it's a great place to start. quite literally have been offered awful offers in the US.... offers i could not live on, i would be better served to work at Wal-Mart . So when i got the initial offer, i nearly fell out of my chair.  

  get 1 month paid vacation.

  relatively flexible work hours, depending on what's going on and what our client wants, and what - if anything - has happened on one of the rigs. Sometimes you get off a little early, sometimes we might be out all night. especially when i'm out at the rigs inspecting/watching the sites and going through the paperworks. 

  and for me personally... I get to get into Saudi Aramco camp (it's basically a little America minus the booze mostly), and i'm right next to the Saudi Arabian air base, where i routinely get to watch the Saudi jets doing their practice runs, seen everything from the F-1 trainer, F15, F16, Tornado's, C-130's, and the new Eurofighters. 

   

   

  While i'd love to share pics of me at the rig, i cannot. but you may get some pics of me traveling all around Saudi (minus the southwest part). 

   

  but anyways that's all that's been going on for me.

  seems my college book-knowledge of mechanical engineering, safety + plus numerous safety certifications have come in handy.  But i am EXTREMELY grateful for the opportunity and have been working very hard to catch up to pace, seems my bosses really like me, very prompt and i get the paperwork done very fast (i'm actually loaded up on paperwork projects that i can't finish everything, i just focus on one thing and get it done it ASAP). It's an industry i really really wanted to be a part of, way back when i was starting in college, and it's a job with a company that has operations quite literally all over the world (every wednsday we have conference meeting with the other rig managers around the world, i always get a kick watching the world light up! ) 

   

  I do really really hope to be able to play Bioshock Infinite soon. Also with all my traveling and staying on the rigs during the work week, i know i'll be catching up on my reading. Most likely won't have any good internet, so you'll be seeing less of me most likely. 

   

  anyways 

  -peace

  • Posted Mar 27, 2013 12:39 pm GMT
  • Category: News
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• 10Mar 13

  Looking at Aveline and Connor of the AC3 series

  NOTE: This gonna be kinda spoilerific blog about Assassins Creed 3 and AC3: Liberation.

   

  

   

  I finally finished Assassins Creed 3: Liberation. I guess it had the same sort of problem as Assassins Creed 3 had where it takes a very long time to get going. Except where AC3 had you playing as Haythem for a few hours then passing it off to Connor, AC3L just takes a long time to get going.

  Around half way to near the end of the game the dynamics of Avelines family start to come to the fore.

  ***SPOILER***

  I was shocked to find Aveline siding with the Templars then suddenly switching sides killing off the Templar lead who was *DUN DUN DUUNN!* your own doting step-mom!

   

  Connors story seems a little under baked, like there is clearly something important going on between Connor and his dad Haythem, and Connor questioning his own motives. To me at least as the player there seemed to be this unspoken thing with Connor saying to his dad you were right as kinda confirmed evident from the deleted soliloquy.

  This mudding of the waters seen in both Connors and Avelines morality between the principals of the Assassins and Templars is a welcome addition to the lore. Its why I find the characters and factions of like Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Mass Effect so fascinating and often make for my absolute favorite pieces of fiction.

  However Aveline and Connor both suffer from the syndrome of being good for being good. Though in Avelines case, just have simple understanding that shes still colored women in 1700s New Orleans when slavery pervades over the society, who is protected, educated and loved by her auspicious father. It is not a great leap to understand Avelines disdain for slavery, its not simply rooted in the beliefs of team Assassin (as evident from Haythem segment in AC3), and its personal.

  Ironically, Aveline and Connor I end up liking, but between the two, Aveline more so. In AC3:L you have the three personas Assassin, Lady, Slave, for the first time an Assassin really uses their guile, cunningness and whit. That isnt to say that this is offsetted by making Aveline a weakling, she is absolutely not in her assassins outfit, Im just saying I find it refreshing that Aveline is an Assassin who has a mind and often uses disguises well. They are times a little video-game like but if you have the bare minimum imagination you can fill in the gaps of what's supposed to be going on in each segment.

  Connor I find interesting, as a case of being a futile cause and making a problem much worse when you think your part of the solution. The whole point was as I got that Connor is a stubborn driven individual who has a cookie-cutter look at who the Templars are. And in this case in AC3 the Templars are kinda the good guys here, but that is consistently being over-written by Connors antics.

  When I look back at AC3, I remember the homestead that you run and the types of people who come to it. The female hunter, the woman who wants to get away from her abusive husband and live her life, the black couple who have a baby and all of them are not treated any differently or any worse. Contrast this with as Connor sees the last shot of a British ship in New York, he looks to his right at the dock and sees slaves still being auctioned off, also knowing that his tribe have abandoned their lands with irreparable damage done to them.

  Thats probably why I like Connor, hes not at all my favorite, but hes certainly more interesting than the overall dour Altair. And Avelines character and her stories twists from half way onto the end had me really engaged.

  

  For me, so far, the best Assassins go as follows  Ezio > Aveline > Connor > Altair. I like both games a lot and will likely try to platinum both in due time, especially the multiplayer ones before their communities dry up.

  Am I looking forward to Assassins Creed  4 : Black Flag? Sure am, little surprised that theyre going the pirate route, along with following Edward Kenway, Connors grandfather. My biggest lament is that Assassins Creed 3 : Liberation is its only on the Vita and that the Vita is not that great of a success yet. Im not one of those folks who bemoans for every other game to have a female lead, but Assassins Creed series is one of those series where its themes and universe is so wide open and diverse that it is a crying shame that Ubisoft hasnt at least tried by now to make a mainline entry with a female lead. But if the Vitas was a test of anything, it was a great success selling some 600,000 copies of the game. Pretty damn good for a game with a system install base of just over 2 million. So heres to hoping.

   I will very likely go back to try to platinum these games in due time, targeting first their multiplayer trophies before their communities dry up. Hopefully they'll have gotten the rest of glitches taken care of.

   

  One More Thing: the one thing I hated about playing the AC3:L? I hate those put the vita in front of a bright light that mini game is so broken, and I often found myself playing in a room that was too dark that I really wished Ubisoft had just give the option to get of having to play that mini game. Got incredibly aggravating at times when it wouldnt work. 

  • Posted Mar 10, 2013 9:12 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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