Well i haven't posted on here in the past couple of days and apologise for that. but theres good reason for it, because i finally got me an xbox 360. oh yeah! and its the swishest entertainment centre yet, ive been watching trailers, music videos (franz ferdinand - do you want to, i love that vid!) and downloading some lovely demos on it. i will take some pictures of it later! My current theme on my one is the Fragdolls, the person who made this theme should only put two of them on it because the rest of them are preety skanky or at least blur them out, so i dont see them when im getting happy with my joystick.
I also got a new album of a local band called Gridlock. Who happen to be awesome. i am always wonderfully suprised with their brilliant vocals, percussionments of their guitar jazzing and lyrics. more people need to check these out and as soon as i have some cash to spare im going to see them live. its been awhile since ive been to a proper gig!
I haven't really updated this much lately. but i will have a go with writing a meaningful one now.
Yesterday i went to the hospital for a diabetes checkup, that went fine and dandy. Managed to finish American Psycho, it was a right chore of a book but i enjoyed it nonetheless. It was nothing like the movie, in fact it was better than the movie in many ways. Everything was so descriptive and brilliantly written, the only problems i had with it was that some of his chapters about 80s singers were rediculously self indulgent, you dont need 10 pages worth of a chapter dedicated to phil collins or huey lewis and the news. Sure i know its trying to show me what sort of character bateman is, but i already know enough already...sheesh.
Ive now started reading The Novice, the 2nd book in the Magicians' Guild trilogy. Its starting off alot better and more interesting than the previous book. Ive also been listening to alot of music from some new bands, mainly Sonata Arctica. very good band, not as good as dragonforce. Dragonforce's latest album is just so exceptionally good. They just get better and better. Ive also been listening to some more Sarah Mclachlan remixes, that girl sure can sing and those mixes especially Fear (Hybrid's Collider Mix) are incredibly chilling.
so i just finished Genji. It was a very easy game and took me no longer than 5 hours, it was a nice game while it lasted. I doubt i will play it again, im not selling it anyway. Its a nice game.
Almost finished reading American Psycho now. Great read and Bateman is getting crazier and crazier.
I have also been playing a spot of Genji today, i've read alot of reviews citing this game preety average and the action being totally dirivitive. I have to disagree with them, but then im not a fan of reviewers period.
When i first played it i would have agreed with the above, the sword movements seemed too artificial with no emotion. But after awhile i got use to it and it didn't seem that way, it felt like the way a real samurai would fight(kendo for example). I begun to chain air attacks with normal attacks and then it all started to feel all nice. You can also unlease a special move called the amahagane, which is a special jewel of sorts from the gods. This allows you to slow down enemy movements to allow you to counter and attack enemies, which is devastating for your unlucky foes. Its very simple when you have unleashed it, all you have to do is tap the square button when it is displayed on screen. The designers could have opted for a more complicated system of doing this, I think they went in the right direction for this. Besides all the enemies have different types of speed, attack patterns and timings, so it always keeps you on your toes regardless.
The graphics, the artwork, and environments portay a beautiful japanese painting of the 1800's. absolutly beautiful, one of the most beautiful and colourful games i've played on the ps2 to this day. It does have some cheapness most probably due to the ps2s old hardware. The many character faces for example could have done with some more work. The story is incredibly simple, but then a story isn't really needed in an action game, nowadays i tend to ignore the stories in games unless its needed, i just want to play the goddamn game not have a 15min cutscene...sigh, what happened to the days of contra/probotector. Its a stunning simple game and for the price i paid which was £9.99 in GAYMESTATION "New" its a bargain! Its a worthy investment and nice to see in your collection, next to the likes of God of War, Devil May Cry 3 and the Onimusha series.
On friday i said i bought some stuff in GAME. Well in that entry i forgot to mention that by coincidence, i met a friend in there who i haven't seen in ages. The thing is i didn't realise it was her or not, she just entered my mind. So i didn't really stop to think of it, it was my mission at the time to find a cheap copy of Megaman X8, which i never found...poey. I only started to think about if it was her or not when i left the shop, then it struck me with a bolt of lightning, im not kidding..IT WAS HER! As soon as i got home, i sent her an e-mail and contacted her on her blog hoping she would respond because i haven't heard her in ages and thought that she might not use that e-mail address anymore. But as luck would have it she still did ^-^.
Its great getting in touch with a mate you haven't seen in ages, she was a cool chick that knew her shit. she obviously still does because she bought bujingai at the same time as me, So the girl indeed still knows her SHIT! I also found out that she thought it was me in the shop too, she was too nervous to find out if it was me because shes a girly girly (those are her exact words :P). I probably made her nervous, with my sudden change in appearence, i have been bulking up. It could also have been the rediculously huge headphones i was wearing, im going with the latter. Either way, im really happy i managed to get in touch with her again, shes most probably reading this entry because i gave her a link to this blog. Hopefully this blog wouldn't scare her off, i wouldn't be suprised though!^_-
Anyway, that was a random thing to happen and another random entry to my blog!
Not much of an update today.
I worked out a new technique while i was working on the till at work. i got a small piece of paper and covered up the clock on the till. That way i dont keep scanning it waiting for my time to leave, time acually passed by quicker this way. So not really a technique, but it stopped me from moaning to myself about the bloody time.
I also went to town again, i bought a couple of games on the cheap from Game. all ps2 titles, got me Samurai Legend Musashi which is a sequel or prequel? to not so huge hit brave fencer musashi which in my opinion was an exceptionally good game with quirky humor. Also got me The Getaway, Bujingai and Maximo vs The Army of Zin. I had bujingai jap before, so i thought while it was cheap pick up the english version. it really is an excellent lovely game and you get to play as Gackt! (not play with him like all you female readers are thinking, you wish gals) also had maximo before through "huh hem" means.
Oh and i still cant get past that last stage on Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan on normal. its really tough and it makes me :(
I recieved a new bookmark today with my name on it, i thought i'd take some snaps to show you all.
and just for the record, everything quoted on said bookmark is totally true and accurate. You read right, IM A REAL MAN!
Sorry, i haven't posted in the past couple of days. i just totally forgot, not that i haven't really done anything at all lately.
Lets start! Well, I did go to town the other day to buy a couple of albums from hmv, which then led to the usual hotspots for shopping, didn't find any snazzy clothes though :( . While at GAYMESTATION(i hate that shop, i will write the reasons why i call it that another day) bobbing my head to eminem - curtain call through my gigantic headphones, to my astonishment i noticed 2 superb games i have been after, donkey konga (with bongos) for £14.99 BARGAIN! and makai kingdom for £29.99 in gamestation, to my delight i traded a couple of shite games for these. SHITE does not need to be in my collection! Speaking of games, i found out the other day that my ex-girlfriend who works for konami (DDR PEOPLE) has managed to find a job for my friend(whom i haven't seen or spoken to in awhile, which is a shame because hes a cool dude) most probably replacing her previous position in the company. good luck mate, and i hope you are enjoying your new job!
Oh i recieved the Megaman X Collection on the ps2. Capcom surely just want my monthly income :(. If you dont know who megaman is then get ta fuck out ta here! The pack contains Megaman X 1 thru 6. I have finished and collected everything on Megaman X 1-2, need to get cracking on to the 3rd one now. will do soon enough. Hmmm.. i submitted my application for UCAS which i think i did on monday, its for media studies. I should have done it months ago, but i kept forgetting about it. the bit that took me the longest was getting one of your employees to write something nice about you.
That bit was a bloody pain in the arse. Ive been terribly moody and boring for the past couple of days too, because of this i treated one of my friends a bit badly. So im going to apologise again in this post because she deserves it, i shouldn't have been such a dick because shes always nice to talk to and great chick to be with. So Im sorry Liz, your a cool chick. sorry to mess you about!
there you go end of post!
Typical boring moody sunday!
Today i managed to do some more reading. I have been in a state of manic reading as of late, i have to blame my friends for introducing me to some nice new books. A special thank you goes to my friend bless for introducing me and buying me the Magicians' guild for xmas, excellent book and well worth a read. The moment, im reading through American Psycho, i have been meaning to read this superb piece of literature for many years, but just couldn't be bothered. Its going well. Patrick Bateman, the egotistical serial killer who has a fancy for everything expensive just slept with two hookers and messed them up preety bad and let them go for now. If you have seen the movie you know one of them will reappear in pieces.
As for reading, i have also been playing more Osu! I would still be playing it if my ds battery didn't run out. But im quite happy to stop where i am for now, im finally on the last stage on normal and i feel preety great about it. I discovered earlier today that theres an option for left handed people, which kind of annoyed me because its helped me out a bit since i knew today. but then im a special breed of people "the left handed people", there arn't many special lefties left in the world. So im that much better than the right handed human race, i can overcome right handed things that make all the right handed people special, like right handed pencils. whats the deal with that!
enough of my rant...end of post.
OOoooh my first post. i should make this memorable, but then i can't be bothered. i have the cant be arsed gene, its a frequent and naughty gene. I think i should start talking about what i have been doing for the last couple of days.
hmmmm where to begin, i finished dragon quest viii for the first time which took me 58hrs, its a bloody miricle a game from japan lasting more than 45mins. Anyways im a huge fan (i know a japanese rpg no less), if you have played it before then you will know i named my blog after one of the main characters. Yangus being a total cockney, with a grasp of the most brilliant language in the world, ENGLISH. Hes always on a journey to save the 'guv, hes my hero, loving the huge bulky fat bastard.
I also preety much finished Shadow of the colossus. Im one of those people thats stuck in the middle trying to decide whether its a masterpiece or not, the constant framerate drops are preety annoying for me. It also didn't pull me the same way ICO did when it first came out, which is one of my favorite games in the last 5 years. I wholehartedly recommend Shadow though, its an experience everyone needs to at least try! From what i heard, if your not an importer its coming out over here in february. So not much of a wait and its going to get some pr, even sony are going to republish ICO on the same day it gets released. Now you wont need to pay extortionate ebay prices for such a classic, then you can laugh at the idiots that did.
As for my PS2 getting alot of treatment, my Nintendo DS is always on the go. The only game i play on it happens to be a japanese game with no english translation. Its called Osu! Tatakae Ouendan! which means go! fight! cheer squad! from what you can tell from the title, you know this isnt going to be a run of the mill. Its a music rhythem game made by the same team that did gitaroo man on the ps2 (another underground hit), if you have played the fantastic little gitaroo man. then you know your going to get yourself a nice solid little game. The music, all in proper audio none of that shitty midi stuff is in here, which is something you come to suspect from ds titles. The game involves helping people overcome thier obstacles in life, using your handy stylus (mine custom made) you have to hit number buttons on the screen to the beats of the music and if your doing it right you see the cheer leader squad doing formations, if you do it wrong they fall on their asses like dicks. Sounds easy enough... acually it isn't, it can be very frustrating at times but thats more of your own fault than the game. the game has a rediculously good difficulty curve, presenting you with new formations and new buttons as you go through the stages, i recommend starting off on easy at first. its what i did when i got frustrated with normal and i noticed how good my progress was going when i did this, when you start on the next difficulty up, after finishing easy you see all your hard work from easy has helped enough to not curse at it when your constantly replaying tracks.
Seriously this is a fucking great game, my best buy last year. no one should miss it, even girls will like it because they will think with their tiny brains, its ddr on a handheld.
as for my gaming hobbies, i have also been out to the cinema, dating, working out and getting seriously pissed. but then thats a normal week for everybody and nobody wants to hear that!
