Since I mentioned this movie to one of my friends yesterday, I wanted to post this by the Eminence Orchestra, "Journey to the West." One of the principle pieces of music from the movie. Fantastic!
Jan 17, 2008
What I did over my winter break...
In an inevitably futile attempt to circumvent answering the hundreds of inquiries from friends or otherwise random people walking down the sidewalk, I am going post here what I did with my three and half weeks of break. For those wanting the short answer and the one I usually give to people when they ask, “How was your break? What did you do?” It is a recurring, “It was good. Wish it was longer. I didn’t do much.” For the full answer of what I did over break, here it is.
“I didn’t do much” by many people’s standards, in that I didn’t go on a vacation or visit any distant relatives, I didn’t even leave my house all that much. Perhaps after I have laid out my entire break to excruciating detail that you might not think “I didn’t do much.”
Before I could even truly get into the full swing that was to be my break, I receive a call from my best friend, Chad, who implores me to come back to Iowa City to pick him up because his car is literally frozen to the ground. Being the kind, good friend that I am, and for lack of anything better to do, I drove back to Iowa City to pick him up, along with some items I had forgotten. (one of them happened to be my driver’s license. ^^; )
For the first few days before Christmas, I spent most of my time sleeping, briefly interrupting this rebooting time by playing video games. Standard affair and should come of no surprise.
On Christmas Eve, my brother’s girlfriend showed up to spend Christmas with us as my parents secretly dreaded every moment she was within five feet of them.
My Christmas gifts this year were more low-end than any other year. A product of getting older, and knowing every single item I was going to unwrap beforehand. Needless to say, there were no major surprises this year as there usually is. Along with the standard Christmas swag of giftcards and greenbacks, I received the following: Two new DS games, Picross DS and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, a Wii Classic controller, a Wii LAN adaptor, my own copies of the movies Kiki’s Delivery Service, Akira, and Whisper of the Heart, (<< I’m betting you don’t know what these are, shame!) a Cowboy Bebop wall scroll, and the Nintendo edition of Monopoly. I am strongly considering not opening the Monopoly, because I know it will probably be played once, maybe twice if its lucky, and it is a collector’s item after all.
Two days after Christmas I spent some of my Christmas revenue on Elite Beat Agents! for the DS, and spent the bulk of the next week playing it and my other newly acquired DS games.
I went to two Basketball games over break. The first being Iowa’s Big Ten opening loss to Indiana. The other one being Iowa’s first win in the Big Ten, which was against Michigan State. I also attended the historic meeting between the most storied wrestling programs in the nation, the dual against Oklahoma State, which we unexpectedly lost.
On more than one occasion I hung out with friends, and one day we spent at our favorite and by favorite I mean only LAN gaming café, Extreme PvP, where we played DoTA and Ravenshield for a cool $12.50.
I beat a total of six games over break: Elite Beat Agents! (DS), Phantom Hourglass (DS), Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), Portal (PC), Super Metroid (SNES), Paper Mario (N64).
I installed Leopard onto my laptop. I completed another video (My Top 5 Most Anticipated Games of ’08), which is currently drifting among the YouTube community along with my others, and started on several other video projects.
That was my break. I think this is sufficient enough that people shouldn’t be asking me about it. So how was yours?
“I didn’t do much” by many people’s standards, in that I didn’t go on a vacation or visit any distant relatives, I didn’t even leave my house all that much. Perhaps after I have laid out my entire break to excruciating detail that you might not think “I didn’t do much.”
Before I could even truly get into the full swing that was to be my break, I receive a call from my best friend, Chad, who implores me to come back to Iowa City to pick him up because his car is literally frozen to the ground. Being the kind, good friend that I am, and for lack of anything better to do, I drove back to Iowa City to pick him up, along with some items I had forgotten. (one of them happened to be my driver’s license. ^^; )
For the first few days before Christmas, I spent most of my time sleeping, briefly interrupting this rebooting time by playing video games. Standard affair and should come of no surprise.
On Christmas Eve, my brother’s girlfriend showed up to spend Christmas with us as my parents secretly dreaded every moment she was within five feet of them.
My Christmas gifts this year were more low-end than any other year. A product of getting older, and knowing every single item I was going to unwrap beforehand. Needless to say, there were no major surprises this year as there usually is. Along with the standard Christmas swag of giftcards and greenbacks, I received the following: Two new DS games, Picross DS and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, a Wii Classic controller, a Wii LAN adaptor, my own copies of the movies Kiki’s Delivery Service, Akira, and Whisper of the Heart, (<< I’m betting you don’t know what these are, shame!) a Cowboy Bebop wall scroll, and the Nintendo edition of Monopoly. I am strongly considering not opening the Monopoly, because I know it will probably be played once, maybe twice if its lucky, and it is a collector’s item after all.
Two days after Christmas I spent some of my Christmas revenue on Elite Beat Agents! for the DS, and spent the bulk of the next week playing it and my other newly acquired DS games.
I went to two Basketball games over break. The first being Iowa’s Big Ten opening loss to Indiana. The other one being Iowa’s first win in the Big Ten, which was against Michigan State. I also attended the historic meeting between the most storied wrestling programs in the nation, the dual against Oklahoma State, which we unexpectedly lost.
On more than one occasion I hung out with friends, and one day we spent at our favorite and by favorite I mean only LAN gaming café, Extreme PvP, where we played DoTA and Ravenshield for a cool $12.50.
I beat a total of six games over break: Elite Beat Agents! (DS), Phantom Hourglass (DS), Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), Portal (PC), Super Metroid (SNES), Paper Mario (N64).
I installed Leopard onto my laptop. I completed another video (My Top 5 Most Anticipated Games of ’08), which is currently drifting among the YouTube community along with my others, and started on several other video projects.
That was my break. I think this is sufficient enough that people shouldn’t be asking me about it. So how was yours?
Jan 12, 2008
My Top 5 Most Anticipated Games of '08
I've seen so many of these "Year in Review" features on every single TV show, and web site to the point of making me sick. 2007 might have been one of the best years in the industry, but I don’t like to linger in the past. So I'm looking ahead to ’08 which looks to be a killer year for gamers, and barring inevitable delays that will make this list null in void, I'm going to attempt to give you my top five most anticipated games of 2008.
5. Soul Calibur IV (Multi)
Perhaps the most polished fighting series in the business. The SC series has built a reputation on awesome visuals, innovative gameplay, unique characters, and big boobies. This fourth installment looks to be all that and more. Namco has promised to fix some of the nagging issues from the third game, such as the balance, or lack there of, as well as provide more open environments as opposed to the cramped, ring-out-happy arenas from three. Of course, new characters will join the strong cast of veterans. And with online play, what fan can afford to miss it?
4. LittleBigPlanet (PS3)
One of the big three PS3 exclusives billed with the task of returning Sony to the top of console war, LittleBigPlanet looks to be truly genre-breaking, and one of the most unique gaming experiences ever. It will have players platforming like never before. Featuring a fantastic physics engine, players will be running, jumping and solving puzzles either alone or with three friends. The game’s main draw is that its community aspect, where players will have total freedom to create their own levels with mounds of content and share them with the world that appears like it will make Halo’s Forge look like an afterthought.
3. Starcraft II (PC)
After 10 years of torment suffered since the last Starcraft game was released in 1998, and after Blizzard is done counting their money they horded from that other ‘craft’ series, gamers will finally return to the Starcraft universe. Okay, so Blizzard hasn’t come out with an official release timetable yet, but this year has been the projected release year thus far. Let’s try to forget about past disappointments and be optimistic. New units, buildings, and abilities will further distinguish the franchise’s three unique races in this long awaited sequel to one of the best Real-Time Strategy games ever.
2. Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii)
Oh yeah, you knew this was going to be on the list, the sequel to the best selling Gamecube title, Brawl is finally arriving February 10th. Third party characters Sonic, and Solid Snake join the famous mascot ranks of Nintendo to duke it out on more stages and modes than the acclaimed Cube title, including online. While the online versus match will be slim on features, Nintendo has promised to make up for it, with an all new single player mode, a stage creation tool, character-specific “final smashes,” fully customizable controls, and more Nintendo nostalgia than you can shake a stick at.
What could possibly be number one?
1. Spore (PC)
The latest project out of the mind of Sims creator, Will Wright, Spore is going to be an experience no one should miss. It will have players start as a single celled organism into a planet dominating, UFO flying, galaxy conquering super creature. It will combine elements of from games like Pac-Man, Civilization, SimCity, and Animal Crossing. The best part is, you, the player get to create everything in the game to the last detail from how many eyes your creature has, to how tall your buildings will be with a click of the mouse. I can’t wait for this game, and be sure to be on the look out for it this year as my top most anticipated game of 2008.
Incidently, this list has titles on it that include two fighting games and two PC games, worlds I rarely delve much into. Now, without further introductory wordage is the list.
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