An Extended Birthday Announcement

danielkempster

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Edited By danielkempster

Hey guys. Once again, I intended to push this blog out a lot earlier than I actually have, so apologies for the delay. I had an essay to write concerning the concept of the epic journey within works of literature, so I didn't have much time to even play games, let alone write about them. After submitting it, I'm now finally free to stretch my fingers and blog for a while. I've got a fair bit to say, so let's see where things go.

The Ocean's films surprised me with how well constructed the heists were

So yeah, it was my birthday on Saturday. I'm now nineteen years old. To be honest, it really doesn't feel any different from being eighteen. I had a pretty awesome day though. I was woken up by my girlfriend and spent the morning with her, then my family came to visit me for the afternoon. We went out together for a drink, then I spent the evening watching films and playing games for an hour or two (more on that later). I didn't get an awesome birthday cake, and I didn't have anybody sing Happy Birthday to me, but that's cool. I'm not a big birthday kind of guy, so it was nice to just spend a whole day relaxing with the people I care about.

For my birthday, I got just over £200, plus the Ocean's films on DVD courtesy of my girlfriend. I've watched all three of these films over the past few days and I have to say they really impressed me. For people who aren't aware of it, there's a TV show in the UK called Hustle, about a group of grifters who construct elaborate plans in order to con ruthless businessmen out of vast sums of money. Feel free to ask resident hustler SuperMooseman if you'd like to learn more about this awesome show. My girlfriend bought me the Ocean's films because they're built on a similar premise, just on a much larger scale and with an all-star cast. While I'm not generally a fan of films boasting A-list celebrity after A-list celebrity, I was really impressed with the elaborate casino heists in the films. Not one, but three George Clooney films that I enjoyed. Who'd have thought it?

While some of the birthday money I got will be going towards covering my food expenses for the rest of term at University, I've spent some of it to replace my Xbox 360. For those of you who weren't aware, I was burgled just over a week ago, and lost my DS, my MP3 player, and my 360. After coming to terms with the fact I'm not likely to see any of that stuff again, I decided to shell out for a new Arcade model with a 256MB internal memory unit. Not ideal, but it'll do for now, considering I'm not currently hooked up to Xbox LIVE. I can always invest in a hard drive when I come into a bit more cash. Of course, when my old 360 was stolen, they also took my hard drive, and this means I've lost my former gamer profile, along with all the Achievement points and Gamerscore attached to it. Basically, I'm starting from scratch with a clean slate. This doesn't bother me too much, because I'm not really an Achievement whore, but I had just started to rake in the points before my last 360 tragically passed away, and now they're all gone for good. What's slightly more annoying is the loss of save data for games like Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV and The Orange Box, probably totalling around 100 hours between them. That's a little bit of a bastard.

Bully may well be Rockstar's crowning PS2 achievement

Despite replacing my 360, it's my PS2 that has seen most activity over the past couple of days. Why? Because I've become addicted to Canis Canem Edit (Bully for all the American readers). It's one of the many games I have yet to finish, although I'm now intent on changing that. After sinking a good twelve to fifteen hours into the game over the last ten days or so, I honestly think it represents Rockstar's finest hour on the PlayStation 2, even more so than Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I don't want to go into too much detail here (I'd rather save that for a future blog), but the game has a hell of a lot going for it. The writing is sharp and satirical, as you'd expect from Rockstar. The gameplay is spot on, with some marked improvements over the standard GTA formula. But what really grabbed me was the amount of depth and detail poured into the gameworld. Bullworth Academy is a living, breathing school, and the town around it is brimming with cool stuff to find. Yes, it's a small map, but the game is all the better for it - what it loses in scope, it gains in focus. I don't think I've ever experienced such a tight, well-constructed action game, with the obvious exception of Grand Theft Auto IV. In fact, Canis Canem Edit may be more of a spiritual predecessor to GTAIV than San Andreas. But I digress. Long story short, Canis Canem Edit is rapidly becoming one of my favourite games of all time. More on that in the future.

Nothing can come between a man and his pinata

When my 360 has been on, I've been sampling Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. I've been interested in this for quite a while, and Brad's review of the game actually persuaded me to spend some money on it. I bought it just before the death of my last 360 and never actually got to play it, so pretty much as soon as I'd set up the new 360 I grabbed the game and booted it up. I've not played much of it, and when I have played I've mostly been messing around, going gooey over all the cute little pinatas and getting to grips with the interface. I have to admit, there seems to be a lot more depth here than I initially anticipated. I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security by the visual style. That being said, I'm really enjoying it, and can't wait to pour some more time into it over the weekend. After growing tired of the Harvest Moon franchise some time ago, this could well be the replacement I've been holding out for.

Valkyrie Profile 2 features some really nice variations on conventional JRPG combat

I've also been trying to get back into playing JRPGs. I haven't devoted any decent amount of time to a JRPG since I played through Final Fantasy IV last year, so I'm itching to get back into them considering they're one of my favourite genres. The game that has been granted the monumental task of getting me back into the swing of things is Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria. I've played about fifteen hours worth of it over the last three weeks and it had really gripped me up until I started playing Canis Canem Edit. I played a fair bit of the first game some time ago (or at least, the PSP remake) and from what I've played so far, it was a nice choice in terms of getting re-acquainted with JRPGs. The story isn't exactly typically Japanese, although there are some telling factors that give the game away. Instead, it's rooted in a loose interpretation of Norse mythology, which makes for a welcome change. What's really impressed me so far is the combat in the game; it's kind of a hybrid of real-time and turn-based combat, with each party member's attacks assigned to a face button on the PS2 controller. By pressing buttons with different combinations and timings, it's possible to string together some pretty impressive combos, and because of this combat can get fairly tactical in terms of trying to fill the attack meter and trigger a Soul Crush special attack. I'm also really liking the 2D-style dungeon crawling and the implementation of photon puzzles, even if they don't feature quite as heavily as I'd like. If I had to criticise it in any way, it would be that it's not very forgiving, but that could just be because I'm a bit out of practice where JRPGs are concerned.

Before I close, I'd like to finish with my opinions of the site update.I got pretty excited about it, and after having just over a week to adjust to the new navigation, I'm really liking it. The layout is less cluttered, although I do miss the navigation and my friends' blog updates being in immediate view on the left side of my profile screen. All the qualms I had with the old profile layout have pretty much been addressed; the reviews have been squished so the whole text isn't displayed, resulting in a shorter profile page, which is very nice. I'm liking the new aesthetics, too. All the Wiki pages are looking a lot less cluttered now, which is a welcome change. What I think is most impressive is how all the guys in charge of the redesign have made the site look a lot smoother and more inviting, without compromising the unique sense of style associated with Giant Bomb. Kudos to Snide, Coonce, and everybody else involved in the redesign. Here's hoping that anything else they're working on will be just as awesome.

So, there you have it. Now I have a much smaller workload for the next week or so, I intend to write up a couple more blogs over the coming days. Before the end of next week, you can expect:

A Discovering Gaming Greatness blog on Canis Canem Edit, explaining why I think Rockstar's overlooked gem is much better than San Andreas.
Some more detailed opinions of Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, once I've spent some more time with it.
Perhaps something related to writing, and some teaser details on my work-in-progress epic novel.

Thanks for reading, guys. See you around.

DanK

---

Currently playing - Canis Canem Edit (PS2)

15 years ago

danielkempster

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#1 Edited By danielkempster

Hey guys. Once again, I intended to push this blog out a lot earlier than I actually have, so apologies for the delay. I had an essay to write concerning the concept of the epic journey within works of literature, so I didn't have much time to even play games, let alone write about them. After submitting it, I'm now finally free to stretch my fingers and blog for a while. I've got a fair bit to say, so let's see where things go.

So yeah, it was my birthday on Saturday. I'm now nineteen years old. To be honest, it really doesn't feel any different from being eighteen. I had a pretty awesome day though. I was woken up by my girlfriend and spent the morning with her, then my family came to visit me for the afternoon. We went out together for a drink, then I spent the evening watching films and playing games for an hour or two (more on that later). I didn't get an awesome birthday cake, and I didn't have anybody sing Happy Birthday to me, but that's cool. I'm not a big birthday kind of guy, so it was nice to just spend a whole day relaxing with the people I care about.

For my birthday, I got just over £200, plus the Ocean's films on DVD courtesy of my girlfriend. I've watched all three of these films over the past few days and I have to say they really impressed me. For people who aren't aware of it, there's a TV show in the UK called Hustle, about a group of grifters who construct elaborate plans in order to con ruthless businessmen out of vast sums of money. Feel free to ask resident hustler SuperMooseman if you'd like to learn more about this awesome show. My girlfriend bought me the Ocean's films because they're built on a similar premise, just on a much larger scale and with an all-star cast. While I'm not generally a fan of films boasting A-list celebrity after A-list celebrity, I was really impressed with the elaborate casino heists in the films. Not one, but three George Clooney films that I enjoyed. Who'd have thought it?

While some of the birthday money I got will be going towards covering my food expenses for the rest of term at University, I've spent some of it to replace my Xbox 360. For those of you who weren't aware, I was burgled just over a week ago, and lost my DS, my MP3 player, and my 360. After coming to terms with the fact I'm not likely to see any of that stuff again, I decided to shell out for a new Arcade model with a 256MB internal memory unit. Not ideal, but it'll do for now, considering I'm not currently hooked up to Xbox LIVE. I can always invest in a hard drive when I come into a bit more cash. Of course, when my old 360 was stolen, they also took my hard drive, and this means I've lost my former gamer profile, along with all the Achievement points and Gamerscore attached to it. Basically, I'm starting from scratch with a clean slate. This doesn't bother me too much, because I'm not really an Achievement whore, but I had just started to rake in the points before my last 360 tragically passed away, and now they're all gone for good. What's slightly more annoying is the loss of save data for games like Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV and The Orange Box, probably totalling around 100 hours between them. That's a little bit of a bastard.

Despite replacing my 360, it's my PS2 that has seen most activity over the past couple of days. Why? Because I've become addicted to Canis Canem Edit (Bully for all the American readers). It's one of the many games I have yet to finish, although I'm now intent on changing that. After sinking a good twelve to fifteen hours into the game over the last ten days or so, I honestly think it represents Rockstar's finest hour on the PlayStation 2, even more so than Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I don't want to go into too much detail here (I'd rather save that for a future blog), but the game has a hell of a lot going for it. The writing is sharp and satirical, as you'd expect from Rockstar. The gameplay is spot on, with some marked improvements over the standard GTA formula. But what really grabbed me was the amount of depth and detail poured into the gameworld. Bullworth Academy is a living, breathing school, and the town around it is brimming with cool stuff to find. Yes, it's a small map, but the game is all the better for it - what it loses in scope, it gains in focus. I don't think I've ever experienced such a tight, well-constructed action game, with the obvious exception of Grand Theft Auto IV. In fact, Canis Canem Edit may be more of a spiritual predecessor to GTAIV than San Andreas. But I digress. Long story short, Canis Canem Edit is rapidly becoming one of my favourite games of all time. More on that in the future.

When my 360 has been on, I've been sampling Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. I've been interested in this for quite a while, and Brad's review of the game actually persuaded me to spend some money on it. I bought it just before the death of my last 360 and never actually got to play it, so pretty much as soon as I'd set up the new 360 I grabbed the game and booted it up. I've not played much of it, and when I have played I've mostly been messing around, going gooey over all the cute little pinatas and getting to grips with the interface. I have to admit, there seems to be a lot more depth here than I initially anticipated. I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security by the visual style. That being said, I'm really enjoying it, and can't wait to pour some more time into it over the weekend. After growing tired of the Harvest Moon franchise some time ago, this could well be the replacement I've been holding out for.

Valkyrie Profile 2 features some really nice variations on conventional JRPG combat

I've also been trying to get back into playing JRPGs. I haven't devoted any decent amount of time to a JRPG since I played through Final Fantasy IV last year, so I'm itching to get back into them considering they're one of my favourite genres. The game that has been granted the monumental task of getting me back into the swing of things is Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria. I've played about fifteen hours worth of it over the last three weeks and it had really gripped me up until I started playing Canis Canem Edit. I played a fair bit of the first game some time ago (or at least, the PSP remake) and from what I've played so far, it was a nice choice in terms of getting re-acquainted with JRPGs. The story isn't exactly typically Japanese, although there are some telling factors that give the game away. Instead, it's rooted in a loose interpretation of Norse mythology, which makes for a welcome change. What's really impressed me so far is the combat in the game; it's kind of a hybrid of real-time and turn-based combat, with each party member's attacks assigned to a face button on the PS2 controller. By pressing buttons with different combinations and timings, it's possible to string together some pretty impressive combos, and because of this combat can get fairly tactical in terms of trying to fill the attack meter and trigger a Soul Crush special attack. I'm also really liking the 2D-style dungeon crawling and the implementation of photon puzzles, even if they don't feature quite as heavily as I'd like. If I had to criticise it in any way, it would be that it's not very forgiving, but that could just be because I'm a bit out of practice where JRPGs are concerned.

Before I close, I'd like to finish with my opinions of the site update.I got pretty excited about it, and after having just over a week to adjust to the new navigation, I'm really liking it. The layout is less cluttered, although I do miss the navigation and my friends' blog updates being in immediate view on the left side of my profile screen. All the qualms I had with the old profile layout have pretty much been addressed; the reviews have been squished so the whole text isn't displayed, resulting in a shorter profile page, which is very nice. I'm liking the new aesthetics, too. All the Wiki pages are looking a lot less cluttered now, which is a welcome change. What I think is most impressive is how all the guys in charge of the redesign have made the site look a lot smoother and more inviting, without compromising the unique sense of style associated with Giant Bomb. Kudos to Snide, Coonce, and everybody else involved in the redesign. Here's hoping that anything else they're working on will be just as awesome.

So, there you have it. Now I have a much smaller workload for the next week or so, I intend to write up a couple more blogs over the coming days. Before the end of next week, you can expect:

A Discovering Gaming Greatness blog on Canis Canem Edit, explaining why I think Rockstar's overlooked gem is much better than San Andreas.
Some more detailed opinions of Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, once I've spent some more time with it.
Perhaps something related to writing, and some teaser details on my work-in-progress epic novel.

Thanks for reading, guys. See you around.

DanK

---

Currently playing - Canis Canem Edit (PS2)

15 years ago

Otacon

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#2 Edited By Otacon

Awesome, I love Hustle too. Happy birthday DanK!

15 years ago

RandomHero666

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#3 Edited By RandomHero666

I'v never watched hustle, might start soon =] i'v heard good things about it.
Canis Canem Edit is brilliant, the Renamed Bully version on Xbox 360 is even better imo.
That Sucks about you getting robbed, i think i heard about that last week, but didn't realise it was so bad =[.

Overall Great blog.

15 years ago

sweep

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#4 Edited By sweep Moderator

DUDE!!! you can import your gamertag over!! Thats what I did after my 360 got stolen!! Its really easy to do, just sign in under the same old gemertag - you might need to enter passwords and stuff.

15 years ago

brukaoru

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#5 Edited By brukaoru

Happy belated birthday, I felt the same, don't really feel different switching from 18 to 19.

Really sucks your stuff got stolen, hope you're able to find whoever did it. I would think, as Sweep said, that you could just import your gamertag over.

15 years ago

danielkempster

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#6 Edited By danielkempster

@ Sweep and Brukaoru - I never got online with my old 360 - I only had an offline profile. So, while I have a Gamertag for console registration purposes, there aren't any Achievements attached to it. Even if there were, I couldn't import it over because my new 360 is hooked up to LIVE.

15 years ago

BiggerBomb

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#7 Edited By BiggerBomb

Good to see that you hit the ground running, in terms of getting back into gaming. It's nice that your "incident" didn't deliver too much of a *FAAAAAAATALITY...LIFE WINS, YOU LOSE.* Hopefully you will be able to get the cash monies for a HDD & XBL, 'cus gaming isn't really the same without 'em.

And hey, you might not have been luchacake'd but you have a solid girlfriend and that's more important than any cake could be (maybe.) At least you're not in the precarious situation of not having a prom date, with only three months to spare! N-not that that's my situation, or...or anything? Aw shucks...

=/

Cheers, dan, I'll be waiting for your next blog! :D

15 years ago

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