Well, it certainly has been a while, hasn’t it. I’d make up some excuse but honestly, I have none. I’ve just been busy, and have decided to pay more attention to the thing that deserve it. Or, need it, rather. That said, it’s summer break, so why not actually update for once.

I had the misfortune of having all four of my wisdom teeth pulled out on Wednesday. Pain, guys. So much pain.

On the bright side, the procedure is over and I can forget about it forever. Once the next two weeks have passed, I’ll be clear of having to re-live this misery again. I’m “blessed” with a greater sensitivity to pain, so it’s been a wonderful ride of nerve-damaged torture over here. For once, it’s illegal in Quebec (maybe even Canada) to knock you out with gas for dental procedures. Something about the risk of death being too high. My argument that it’s as likely for me to get hit by a car when going home did not impress the dentist’s assistant. Instead, they freeze the area of operation and let you stay awake for the whole thing. Fun! They froze everything as much as possible, but I still felt inordinate amounts of pain for three of the four teeth. While I didn’t feel “sharp” pain, the pressure from the dentist cramming tools into my mouth and pulling out the teeth was enough to have me shaking the entire time.

When I got home, I was white as a sheet. I was in constant pain, and it took hours for my painkillers to kick in. I was pacing back-and-forth in my house, intermittently yelling and shaking because the pain was just too much to deal with. Fortunately, after three hours of awful, awful pain, the painkillers kicked in. And by painkillers, I mean Oxy. Things were pretty... “colorful”, let’s say.

The other unpleasant business was constantly spitting blood every minute. I’m surprised I didn’t faint from loss of blood considering that I was evacuating it by the bucketload. Certainly felt weak, that’s for sure.

A day later, and it’s better now. Pain is still there, though it’s more like a constant nuisance now. Painkillers and ice cream is doing wonders as opposed to yesterday. Though pain or not, I cannot wait to eat solid food again. Dump a fat burger into my mouth... fuck. Can’t wait.

Later edit: It's two days later now. My jaw has swelled up. I look like a chubby teenager, and I can barely open my mouth. It's not very painful, but it feels like my jaw is going to asplode at any moment. Then again, I'm on painkillers, so who knows, really.

School’s also taken up a fuck-load of my time. Second year is done with, finally. The last few months were really taking their toll. I could barely leave my house I had such a massive stack of homework. Designing a classroom layout, reproducing a Vermeer painting in actual paint, building and painting a creature, designing a travel poster... So much work. But, it’s over with, and I passed all my classes. Woo!

I’ve also taken up artwork a lot more, recently. I’ve done some actual work, but I’ve mostly been drawing some silly drawings of myself. What started as me cribbing the Adventure Time style has slowly started turning into my own thing, and I love it. It’s the best way to just... chill out and doodle. I love making complex, pretty pieces, but there’s an entirely different kind of enjoyment out of drawing something I can look at and just laugh and like.

For example, I did this big piece not too long ago. I like it a lot, but it also took me something close to twenty hours to make. I am also fine with investing that time, but I also made this piece that took me about an hour and a half, which I totally love. This one, done for a friend of mine (NSFW), also took me about the same time. They’re fun and silly, look neat, and a ton of fun to draw. I get the same amount of enjoyment out them than I do out of drawing something super complicated, and I don’t know how that makes me feel. I almost want to stop making complicated stuff for a while and just do dumb stuff like this.

But alas, I can’t. I have a table at Otakuthon this year, and some serious fan art is in order. Journey, Diablo 3, FEZ, Persona... A bunch of prints will be drawn, and you can come buy them! :D

Also, I've set myself up a Tumblr for me to post artwork stuff on. There won't be many updates coming within the next few days, because I can't really draw in my wisdom-tooth-pain condition. I can barely lean forward, let alone concentrate on a drawing.

After owning Ico and Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2 for many years and never getting around to beating either, I ended up borrowing the HD collection from a friend. After a surprisingly short 5 hours, I beat Ico. I... I had mixed feelings on the game.

I suppose that is partly due to having the game revered as a classic this whole time, and going into it in a time where it probably doesn’t hold up as great as it did back then. I adore the minimalist presentation and the lack of serious story exposition, but the combat is fucking terrible. Early on, I almost completely gave up on playing it it was so infuriating. Fending off hoards of shadow-men for 20 minutes because your stick is a garbage weapon is not fun, and I seriously doubt it ever was. There is just too much combat, and the only way I got to get through it was by getting the two-hit kill mace.

That said, the last sequence is brilliant. The lack of save points is... odd, but I feel like the game would have benefited so much more by taking that approach than its combat-heavy start. The final boss fight was great, and the presentation was just terrific. Loved it. The end certainly made up for the early passings of the game.

Shadow of the Colossus, on the other hand, is just as wonderful as I remembered it being. I played it originally on the PS2 around its launch, and got up to the 9th colossus until I stopped playing for some reason. I’m back to that spot now, and I’m more excited than ever to finish it. The cinematic quality of the game is astounding. The music, the presentation, the camera, and the gameplay mechanics all compliment each other so well. Truly brilliant. While I can appreciate Ico, SOTC is the true classic, here.

Probably at the top of my summer bucket list was Parasite Eve, a game I’ve owned forever and never got around to playing. Unfortunately, I got myself stuck in the game, but I’ve certainly got thoughts about it.

For one, it’s really made me miss the PS1-era of RPG presentation. Where all the backgrounds were pre-rendered in 3DS Max with student-level effects, where the HUD was complex and unnecessary, where gameplay and presentation truly started to balance out in importance. I feel like if something was going to come back in some nostalgia pull, this is the thing that should be it. Quick, everyone! Learn 3DS Max and only use Blinn textures! WE’LL MAKE IT HAPPEN. The gameplay is also a lot of fun. I love the battle system, and the pacing is pretty great. My only real problem with the game is the lack of direction, as the game isn’t always 100% clear on where you should be heading next.

Case in point: where I am stuck. At the start of Day 5, you are given the option to go to either Chinatown or a warehouse, with no clear indication of where the story progresses from there. I went into the warehouse, not knowing that this is actually an optional dungeon that should be entered after the Chinatown area, because you will be too underleveled otherwise. I got into the dungeon, fought the first encounter and ran into a room with a locked door. I saved in that room, stupidly without making a backup save. The key to unlock the door is in the room with the first encounter, which I need to re-fight in order to exit the warehouse/get the key, yet I cannot get past that fight because the enemies just completely decimate me. All of this could've been avoided had I not gone to the warehouse, but such is my luck.

Other than that, though, the game is super cool. I love the story and its bizarre pseudo-science, the characters are pretty cool, and like I said, the gameplay is great. Just a shame I got myself stuck so far in. I don’t know if I’m ready to go ahead and re-start the game just yet, or in a while. :(

The last game I cleared off my bucket list was Midnight Club II. Rockstar recently gave away free copies of the game for PC, and boy, let me tell you: that Midnight Club II sure is a fucking great game.

I’d imagine it’s worth noting that Midnight Club II has been my favorite racing game since I originally played it on PS2. The car selection, the open world, the cities, the characters, the super-tight controls, gameplay mechanics, hidden passages... everything about the game is pure arcade-racer bliss. And the best news? None of that has changed since. Despite coming out almost a decade ago, the game’s strengths continue to be incredibly strong.

I loved playing through it again, and it made me sad that I had completed it so fast. It took me somewhere around 15 hours to complete, but those hours just completely flew by. The game takes a steep difficulty climb when you reach Tokyo, but you’ll have acquired so many skills by then that shortcuts, maneuvers... they all just happen. Like some bizarre sixth sense. Mind you, memorization is also a very strong factor in winning races later on--pure skill can only take you so far. Either way, it’s an insane challenge and it felt so rewarding to beat the game.

There’s just something about it, too... the style of it. That early 2000’s-era of arcade racers, where you needed little context to actually justify anything about the game. Just drive! Why can you control your car in the air? I don’t know, you just can! This car can accelerate faster than an F1 car? Whatever, man! It’s not a sim! That pure, fun-ass arcade experience... I don’t know who’s keeping that alive anymore, and that bums me out some.

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That's it for this edition of the blog. Maybe I'll update next week. Hopefully. That'd be cool, right? I don't know, we'll see. Life's hectic at the moment. A set schedule for this stuff doesn't always work, especially not as of late. Whatever the case, it won't be the last you hear from me. Keep up with me on Twitter or Tumblr for the time being, I suppose. :)

Early update, but not really an actual update.

I'm sincerely sorry for not keeping up with this, but the past few weeks have been insanity. My work load with school has been crazy, and will continue to be crazy for another week. Thankfully though, my semester ends on the 10th. When it's over, I plan on actually making a proper update to the blog, talking about a bunch of neat shit like FEZ, Indie Game: The Movie, and whatever else I can think of. A reflection on my semester, too, maybe.

For now, sit tight. I'll be back soon. Promiiiiiiiiiise. Have a funny video, again, to pass the time. :)

Love you!

Oh my, it seems like I completely missed last week! Hm. I suppose keeping all of my spring break homework up to the last minute was a terrible idea, since it didn't exactly allow me to write anything for the blog. Weak. There’s an entry this week, though, so let’s get to it.

Probably worth starting with stuff going on around me. For starters, I ended my last scheduled therapy session about two weeks ago, which felt pretty great. I will by no means say that I am “fixed”, because I am not. I still think about the past far too often than I should, and it has been stupidly controlling my decisions on occasions I wish it did not. The difference now is that my mood has significantly improved since. For the first time in what feels like a very long time, I do feel happy. I have felt happier, but time will come where I’ll be up to that again. I still get sad every so often when I over-think things, but it goes away a lot faster now. I can actually get up in the morning and feel motivated to go out and do things.

Things like going out to concerts with friends, such as the Feed Me show I went to on the 3rd. Fucking brilliant show. His setlist was perfect, and I don’t think I had ever seen a crowd so energetic. The bro-douchebaggery brought a lot of unmerited moshing to the show, but even still I was having so much god-damned fun that I couldn’t of cared less. It was amazing, and a really terrific mood brightener amidst a flurry of homework that has kept me grounded at home for weeks now.

The post-show was slightly unpleasant, though. For one, my friend lost the tee he bought from the merch table somehow. $25 down the drain. :( We had also spent three hours jumping up and down, so our legs were fucking exhausted. This was worstened by the fact that it was now 2AM, and there were no metros passing anymore. Montreal/Laval has the worst metro system, I swear. Whatever the case, we live an hour’s transit away from downtown, so we crashed at my sister’s place that night. Which we had to walk to. A five kilometer walk. At 2AM, tired and with busted legs. Argh. To make matters worse, I had to shit really bad for the last kilometer or so of that walk, which was really unpleasant. … Sorry. It just adds to the detail. I think.

But whatever. We woke up the next morning feeling fine, and then I went to school and was sore all-over for the next two days. Totally worth it.

In game-related news, I finished Mass Effect 1 and 2! Woo! I beat 2 to completion this time around, which I did not get to do the first time. Scanned all the planets, did all the side-quests and everyone turned out fine at the end, so that was fun. I also wrapped up the only DLC I had not played, which was Overlord. What a terrific piece of content. Great story, fun gameplay, some really awesome scenery, and a plot twist that really had me in awe. It was something else, in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen touched upon in a game before. Cool stuff. I'm excited to get 3 this week and finish out the series, finally.

I’ve also been playing a bunch more of Modern Warfare 3, which continues to be aggravating. They released the new map for PS3 this week, Black Box, which has encouraged players around the world to be dicks and literally do nothing but camp. The map is just designed in a way where players can sit in one spot and have an open view of 30% of the map, then just pick off anyone they see running or sniping. Almost every match I have played on it was a lousy experience, and it’s making start to get a little annoyed with the game. The more I play it, the more I start to realize all these retarded things that Infinity Ward has overlooked that will never be fixed. They’ve proven with 3’s multiplayer that they’re too lazy to make a real effort to change things, so why would they fix things like your predator missile screen also getting flashed when you do? Or killstreaks being erased when you earn one on top of the other? Or PlayStation servers that are apparently rented out of a barn somewhere in Montana, because it usually takes half-to-all of a mag to kill a dude, when it should only take three bullets.

Or maybe it’s just me having shooter fatigue. Who knows. What didn’t give me any kind of fatigue, however, is Journey. I did a second playthrough during my break, which turned out to be an even better experience than my first. Why? Because of this:

I actually played the entire game with a single partner, where we actually developed a language to communicate with each other. We eventually knew how to say we were happy, worried, that one should get the other to come over here... it was something else. Especially later in the game, where we had actually lost each other and I began to worry. A lot. My friend was with my as I was playing, and saw me getting scared that I had actually lost the person I was with for the whole game.

But you know what’s the real kicker? It’s that I messaged that person afterwards. I thanked them for being the best partner I had ever had in the game, and they replied later. They replied in … pretty broken english. They thanked me, too. But then it dawned on me-- whoever I played with was definitely not from my neck of the woods. Not even close. There is probably a very steep language barrier between the two of us, and yet we understood each other perfectly in the game. We were completely in sync, but in real life we would probably be completely dumbfounded and unable to even say “Hello”. I’ve never felt like that with anything before, and that realization was something really special. That I was even able to have that kind of experience... man. Just, videogames, right?

I also bought F1 2011, and I’ve played a bit of the game’s career mode. I’ve also played some online with a few fellow Bombers which was a lot of fun. The game’s alright, though it has a few noticeable shortcomings. For one, the game doesn’t looks that great. Some of the texture work is rough, and a lot of the character models are pretty terrible. The cars themselves look alright, but the detail on them is also spotty at times. It also has the worst driving line in the history of racing games. It frequently lies, telling you to brake at distances that will make you irreversibly overshoot turns. Really stupid, so you end up having to practice spotting your breaking points off actual track markers and whatnot. If you’re a fan of F1, though, it’s pretty neat.

The last thing I played was Lumines: Electronic Symphony. I borrowed my friend’s Vita to play it, and yup, that game is Lumines and yup, that game is totally rad.

Know what isn’t rad, though? The fucking Vita, that’s what. A beautiful system, but Jesus Christ that device is the most poorly conceived thing I have ever used. The menus all have a different way to opening and closing (Some require the label peeling, others to hit an X button, others to hit a back button) and a bunch of features can’t be used without closing another. Worst of all, though? No drive mounting.

I wanted to put some episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air onto it so I could have something to watch on the way back from school. A reasonable thing to want right? No? Well, get fucked. I tried to anyway. Here’s a step-by-step progression of me trying to do so:

I hook up the Vita up to my computer. It detects I’m connected to a PC, and says I need to do a firmware update before I can install drivers onto my PC. I do the firmware update. Takes half-an-hour to download through wi-fi and install. It installs, reboots, and I re-plug it to my PC. It installs drivers. It fails to install one out of the three. It tells me I need to download a Content Manager application for my PC to transfer files. I download the application. I install it. It starts, and asks me where my music, video and picture folders are. It indexes all of those folders, including all 90GBs of my music. This takes about 45 minutes to finish. Finally, the Vita is ready to connect to my PC. I plug the Vita into my PC, and it tells me to open the Content Manager app on the Vita. I do so. It shows that I cannot copy files onto the Vita from my PC. I need to do the copying from the Vita itself. It asks if I want to copy from the PC to the Vita, or vice versa. I tell it from the PC. It asks what I want to copy. I say Video. It opens the video folder that was assigned in the PC Content Manager. This folder does not have Fresh Prince episodes in it. I cannot browse my folders on PC. I unplug the Vita, restart Content Manager on the PC and tell it to go to the folder when my episodes are. It indexes that folder. I plug the Vita in and do the same thing again. It opens the folder, and does not list any video. The DivX-encoded .avi files aren’t compatible with the Vita. I shut the whole thing down and I do not touch it. I give the system back to my friend.

That shit right there? That’s unacceptable. I get the “we need to fight piracy” thing, but you’re actively encouraging me to find a workaround when you make copying fucking files so inconceivably difficult. It’s fucking 2012, and I need to use a god-damned application to transfer files onto my extremely advanced piece of hardware? Fuck, Sony. 2003 called and said that even in 2003, that shit is stupid. My three-year old phone can play any video or audio file in the known universe, and your $250 media system can’t play the most common codec in digital video? What. The. Fuck.

The games seem fun, and the system is powerful and beautiful to look at, but fuck that thing. Fuck it, and fuck its stupid design flaws, especially if they impede my ability to watch Fresh Prince on the go.

China! After a grueling two weeks of no racing, F1 returned this weekend in Shanghai with a really exciting race. Qualifying was a pretty fun watch, with Rosberg and Schumacher taking the top spots. I was excited to see Raikkonen place high up, and even more so to see Kobayashi place third. Sauber is really killing it this season. Biggest surprise of the session has got to be Vettel, though, who barely made it past Q1 and didn’t even get into Q3.

He also didn’t perform that well early-on in the race, dropping back to, like, 19th or something after the first few laps. The rest of the race was a ton of fun to watch, though. Shanghai is a great track, and it kept a lot of the racers close to each other. At least, when they weren't flying off the track to fly into outer space. There were constant battles for 4th and 8th place, which made the middle and latter parts of the race a ton of fun. Grosjean actually finished, which was awesome. I also really wanted Raikkonen to shine. He did for a very good portion of the race, but stayed on the same tyres for too long and lost so much grip. He was drifting into turns, practically. It was no surprise that he gave up his 4th place to drop down almost 10 places. I can’t imagine defending that position with tyres that worn being any kind of possible. I was really hoping he’d be near the top, but I was also kind of rooting for Rosberg to win. He gave an amazing performance, and really earned that win. Can’t complain about McLaren placing second and third, either.

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And that’s it! See you next week. :]

What a disappointment that my 10th successful update to this blog has to be a delay. I've got to get back to this shitty painting homework, so I'll cut this short.

This week has been full of excitement and work. I finished therapy, started playing more games, beat Mass Effect 1, and continued a bunch of stupid school projects that I want to die. A lot has happened, and is still happening, so I need to get back to it.

Next week, you can expect a big update. Outlook on life, Journey, Mass Effect, art, and the Feed Me show I will have gone to.

Until then, I leave you with this:

I’m honestly a little surprised that I even got a blog up this week. It’s a little late, but I had a lot of homework to do and the Formula 1 race lasted significantly longer than I expected. Silly rain. Monday edit: And I’m even later! Sunday caught up fast, and I spent almost all of the day writing. Sorry, guys. :( Tuesday edit: HEY GUESS WHAT I HAD TO DO ON MONDAY NIGHT? DID YOU GUESS HOMEWORK? Well, you were half-right. The other half was Call of Duty, and going to bed early. But this is seriously the last edit before I post this damned thing.

This week was the first week returning from March break, which I think the entire class was sure would be a little bit easy on us. You know, return from vacation, ease into things or whatever. But no. Instead, we had to build a creature out of tin foil and soldering wire, start reproducing Vermire’s Girl With a Pearl Earring, and render a set design through technical drawing within a week and due for the following week.

I’ve done two out of three, but haven’t been able to finish the painting. I fell victim to an absolutely terrible migraine on Saturday, something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before. My eyes felt like they were being crushed and my brain felt like it was swelling so much that my skull was splitting open. I think breaking my collarbone was the worst kind of pain in the long run, but I could deal with that again. After the initial unbearable pain, a back-brace and weeks off physical activity weren’t so bad. That migraine, though? I never want to feel that ever again. Ever. I couldn’t even rest, because lying down made my head hurt on whatever side I’d lie on. Thankfully, it went away later in the night. It only lasted a small, reasonable 8 fucking hours, but it has passed and hopefully will never come back.

Last Sunday, (the 18th) after a long stretch of homework, I sat down in front of my TV and decided to play Journey. After a strong recommendation from fellow duders Xeiphyer and Ossi101 to play it in a single sitting, I shut off all the lights, plugged in my wonderful monitor headphones and started playing.

I should preface: I really hate the “games as art” argument. What art means is a topic unbelievably subjective. In addition to that, going to college in an art program really enlightens you to how full of shit the majority of the arguments are. I don’t like talking about, I don’t like hearing it, and it sucks that I need to bring the topic, and words that could be associated to said topic, to light.

With that said, what followed for the next 90 minutes was the single most meaningful experience in videogames I have ever played.

And yet for as incredible as it was to play, it is incredibly difficult to describe. What mechanically makes Journey isn’t anything to laud over, really. It’s linear, it’s an adventure game, and it is fully functional in both those aspects. No, what makes Journey is the experience of completing the adventure with the help of another anonymous person, and the emotions and lessons you take from it.

Throughout the game, you are never told who your partner is. You’re left to cooperate with a complete stranger through a very limited language, and you are “given” the task to help each other reach an end goal. The sense of comradery becomes strong very quickly once you find out that being near each other recharges your jumping meter, and it creates a sort of personal attachment to that person. You feel connected to them, like they’re a really close person you can count on. It’s simulates a lifelong-like friendship within minutes, and it comes with a similar kind of heartbreak when you end up losing your partner. Maybe they left, maybe you both got lost-- whatever the case, having them vanish brings a sense of loss, and I never thought I could actually feel that from a game.

I ended up sticking with the same person throughout the later half of the game, and the final task Journey imposes on you was one of the most tear-jerking, unbelievably powerful moments I have ever seen. I can’t bring myself to spoil it for someone who hasn’t played it, but you just have to know that nothing will impact you like this does. Something else in life will, but not like Journey does. The entire adventure, and the people you meet along the way, is unique to Journey, and I don’t know if any other form of entertainment will mark me like it did.

And here’s where I get sappy. In both art and life, I try to be as literal as possible. I don’t take to the “hidden meaning” school of thought, which makes Illustration far more lovable to me than Fine Arts is. I don’t like pretending like my art means something when, really, I just want to make something awesome for people to enjoy. Journey, however, is one of the very few things to make me think differently. There’s a beautiful metaphor for life to be found in the game, where you are constantly fighting life to reach your personal goal. You’ll meet people along the way who will be of great help to you, who will grow close to you, and will, sometimes, unfortunately leave your side. But every person will have played a part in helping you reach your peak, and this will let you share with others your experience and stories about getting there. I never, ever thought I could actually see a game, or any form of media really, this way, but I couldn’t be more serious about it.

Journey isn’t just a wonderful game. It isn’t just one of the best PlayStation 3 games, either. It is the shining example of the maturity of a medium. It lives in a form of entertainment driven by the constant thrill of self-reward and self-satisfaction. It is an escapist experience that explores the trials and tribulations of life, and the true impact of human interaction. It makes you feel. It doesn’t make you feel happy or sad, it actually pulls at the various strings of your psyche to make you feel like something important and meaningful happened.

It goes without saying that it is, without a doubt, my favorite PS3 game. And not just that, but I truly believe it is a highlight of this generation.

Any more than that, and I’ll basically be circlejerking with myself about the game. But seriously, go play Journey if you haven’t. Borrow a friend’s PS3, even. Just make sure you play it, because this really is an important game.

Well, what a weekend of racing that was. Malaysia is always a fun race because it seems that the track itself eats tyres for dinner every year. Qualifying and practice was a close repeat of last year, with Schumacher placing third and Raikkonen in 5th (but starting 9th) being exciting changes. The race was the real surprise, though. For one, Grosjean’s start was fucking incredible. Launching from 6th to 3rd before the first turn? Unbelievable. Such a shame that we was knocked out early once more. His bump with Schumacher seemed to be a mutual error, but sucks none-the-less. He has great promise, but he’s yet to show it in real competition.

Then came the rain. And not just regular rain, but a full-on storm, too. Lightning on the track! Bringing out the red flag was wise, considering cars were practically flying off the track in turn 9. Took what seemed like forever for the race to start again, but it finally started again and... well, things were weird. Button smashed into the tourist of a driver Kartheykian, Vettel ran into similar problems with the same HRT driver, Williams suffered poor lap times, and Hamilton messed up his pit stop. The series of mishaps let Alonso take the lead pretty quickly, (with Massa continuing to do terribly) but the real surprise came in the form of Sergio Perez and his incredible performance. Despite being on intermediate tyres in slick conditions, Perez destroyed sector times lap after lap all while quickly gaining on Alonso for the pole position. The battle between the two for First was amazing to watch. Perez just wouldn’t let up, and I’m confident that had he not slipped up a few laps before the end, he’d of walked out of that car a winner. But still, second place for him and Sauber is nothing to scoff at. With his fantastic defensive skills in Australia and his performance in Malaysia, he is seriously proving himself to be a threat this year. I can’t wait to see him next in China.

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And that’s it! See you next week. :]

(Also sorry for the lack of pictures and stuff. I need to get back to this shitty painting, so no time to divulge to hunting down the perfect accompanying pictures.)

Welp, it’s been a week! A nice, relaxing week off from school and almost every other responsibility. A week of rest.

I left on Friday night to my dad’s, where I stayed for the weekend. I live in the heart of a busy suburb, with my apartment directly next to the busiest highway in the area. I take public transport to get everywhere, I go to school in downtown Montreal, and my entourage generally consists of condos and shopping malls. My dad works in the same downtown area (a 20-minute walk from my school, which is pretty cool) but lives a 45-minute commute away, in the Laurentian country. Surrounded by mountains, forests, dirt trails and half-paved roads, I felt like it was the perfect place for me to take some time off. It certainly helps that I don’t get to see my dad as often as I’d like, too.

And so, I went over and had a great time. Accompanied him for the few errands he had to run, which ended up in buying a bunch of bread for me to make french toast with, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. On Sunday, we went hiking out on a local trail, with the weather being perfect. The weather was warm, the sky was completely clear of clouds, and there was absolutely no wind.

I got back on Monday, and it’s since been a mixture of relaxing, drawing, playing games, hanging out with friends, catching up on TV shows, (Finished LOST and Metalocalypse!) and cleaning up. I also did some fun arts and crafts non-sense, like make a display of my favorite albums.

It wasn’t exactly the most productive of breaks, but I took the time I needed to chill out from the regular routine. I feel a lot better, even if I didn’t exactly accomplish much.

Though I played the usual SSX and Modern Warfare 3, I started a new Mass Effect save earlier this week because I lost my original saves when moving to a new 360. It’s been an interesting experience, to say the least. A lot of what Mass Effect great is still there, but there is also a lot that has not particularly held up well.

The inventory is still total garbage, the loading screens between individual sectors on the Galaxy Map is a drag, the shooting is acceptable at best, and there really needs to be an actual running speed when holding down A. But even still, the game remains great. The story is still my favorite, the characters are still great, and the game still has a sense of style that I sorely missed in 2. The B-movie, 80’s sci-fi look and feel to everything... I felt like it really defined what Mass Effect looked like, and that Bioware departed from that saddens me. Maybe it will come back some time in the future. One can hope, really.

This weekend was also the start of the 2012 Formula One season. I haven’t kept up with the sport for the last... two years or so, so I got really excited when I became able to watch it again.

The qualifying session on Saturday was surprisingly entertaining, with some really surprising results coming from it. Ferrari placing so far back was my biggest surprise. I mean, I know they haven’t been doing that great as of late, but that bad? Really rough. Vettel not being in the top three was also surprising, though I can’t say I was disappointed with Hamilton and Button taking the top spots. I was disappointed with Kimi Raikkonen placing so far back, though. For a return to F1, I was sad to see him not reach the potential he had with the Lotus car.

Even more entertaining was the race on Sunday. As a Button fan, I got all giddy when he blasted into the lead straight out of the first corner. Even more impressive was his ability to not only stay there for the majority of the race, (eventually winning it! :D) but that he managed to create an 11 second lead between him and Hamilton in second. The battles between Hamilton and Vettel were also a ton of fun to watch, though I was bummed that Grosjean and Schumacher got taken out of the race so early. Rosberg did a pretty good job with his laps, but I felt like there would of been a lot more action at the front and middle of the top-10 pack if Grosjean and Schumacher would of been there. Even still, there were a lot of great moments, like Perez being terrific on defense, and Kobayashi showing confidence and aggressiveness in his overtaking. The weather was beautiful, the track was in great condition, and there were a lot of really good moments in the race--like the hilarious radio conversation between Raikkonen and his crew about the blue flag. That had me giggling for a while. Good stuff.

It was a really great start to the season, and shows promise that this year might not be a Vettel/RedBull runaway like it was last year. Mercedes has an extremely competent car, McLaren has two world champions driving their brilliant car, and Lotus is also showing a good amount of promise. It’ll be interesting for sure, and I can’t wait to watch the Malasyian race next weekend.

Also, I guess the F1 part of the blog will return next week. And every subsequent week. I want somewhere to talk about it. Maybe I should spin this off into its own thing? I don’t know. I guess I’ll keep it here for now.

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And that’s it! See you next week. :]

Hey guys, actual update this time!

I’m really sorry for the lack of anything worthwhile from this blog in... what is it, three weeks now? School finally caught up with its mountainous load of homework, forcing me to stay entrenched in the darkened nest that is my room. Between that, midterms, and dealing with personal matters, I haven’t exactly had the time to spend writing and doing things I’d otherwise like to be doing.

But, reading week is finally upon me, and with it comes the pleasant joy of writing another entry in what continues to be a wonderful place for me to vent my nonsense. Fortunately, I actually have a bunch of crap to talk about this week.

I’ll start off with what I have the least to talk about, which is Modern Warfare 3. The first two maps came out on PS3 not too long ago, and the limited time I’ve had with them has... well, I haven’t played on them since. Right now, the only people interested in playing those maps are the super-elite, who spend all of their multiplayer experience min-maxing every possible loadout and playing like assholes. As someone who wants to enjoy my time with the game, I’ve decided to chill on that. I’ll wait ‘till the other two maps release as a single pack for the common folk, and go back to them once the masses have padded out matchmaking. As it stands right now, the Elite matchmaking is full of people I have absolutely no interest in playing against.

As a replacement to that, my friend and I have started playing a whole bunch of Drop Zone, one of the custom playlist options added around Christmas. We had tried out the mode when we started playing to see what it was like, only to find out that it was a grenade-spam fest. It was complete chaos, every team we joined would be behind the enemy team by 4000+ points, and it gave us no interest in playing it ever again. As of late, however, the mode seems to have changed. I’m up to level 57 on 4th prestige, and every single level has been spent playing Drop Zone. I can’t explain why but it’s suddenly become playable, and it’s been an incredibly fun experience. The constant fight to hold a territory that randomly moves across the map is tons of fun, and losing gives you the great benefit of giving you an INSANE amount of helicopters, UAVs, and CUAVs to take down. Couple that with Blind Eye Pro, and you have an entire match of my friend and I just shooting stuff out of the sky. Otherwise, it’s an entire match of my friend and I fighting to see who an capture that AC-130, Reaper, or Osprey first.

If you’re getting bored of the standard TDM/Domination fare, give the mode a shot. Equip Blast Shield (you won’t survive without it) and you’ll see-- it’s a great break from the traditional experience. The only downside is that it seems to bring out the worst in players. I tend to go with my usual loadouts-- silenced MP5 with Sleight of Hand/silenced ACR with Blind Eye-- and when I get a little ahead in points, everyone pulls out the Strikers with Range, or RSASS/AS50s to quick-scope with. It’s... I don’t know. It’s not like they’re any harder to kill, but it bothers me that it continues to be a problem like it was in Modern Warfare 2. You’d think Infinity Ward would of, you know, realised how busted both those weapons are... Whatever the case, it’s hardly enough to detract from how fun Drop Zone is. Try it!

This is what I really want to talk about, though. Which, really, is hilarious, because I have no idea where to start. SSX gets so many things right, I can’t even begin to list all the things that it’s gotten me to fall in love with. It’s the perfect sequel to a franchise I have loved since the very first iteration, and is also a mechanically brilliant re-invention of a genre of a time gone by. The core elements that made SSX an insane amount of fun are still here. The unrealistic physics, the characters, the ludicrous tricks, and the great track design. It’s all still here; made with modern controls and modern features to make it impossible to put down.

As you’d hope with a true SSX game, the physics follow the wonderful series tradition of insanity. Your average speed will always hover around 120 kilometers per hour, (74 miles per hour, for you Imperial sillies) and jumps will generally be around four or five times as high as whatever building you work at. The course design brilliantly caters to this, emphasizing the various hazards and environmental features of the mountain ranges featured in the game. There is something to be said for having a course work equally well (with some exceptions) in Race It and Trick It events. The courses still have an insane amount of shortcuts, hidden paths, alternate paths, and trick-centric paths, only instead of having three mountains-worth, you have... 29? Yeah, I think 29 is the right number. If not, it’s around there, which is still totally insane.

Oh, and the tricks are still insane, the characters still spout wonderful nonsense and the game is very pretty.

Cool, now let’s talk about online, because this is what makes SSX. Taking a cue from its racing bretheren, SSX has an Autolog-esque feature called RiderNet; a feature that assumes the role of an expanded leaderboard. Players on your friend list will become rivals, who can then set scores and times as challenges for you to beat. Beating them will earn you in-game credits, as will surpassing the scores of other friends on your leaderboard. If a rival tries to take down your score, and can’t, you earn credits for every retry he’s put in. Much like it was in NFS: Hot Pursuit, (and that other abortion of a Need for Speed game, I suppose) this grows to become incredibly addictive whilst also being incredibly infuriating. Mind you, it is in probably the best way possible, as it drives you to be a better player if you’re the competitive type, but with it comes those few times where you just can’t shave those few seconds off no matter how hard you try and... well, then controllers fly, I suppose.

The Global Events are an equal stroke of genius. Taking the place of standard head-to-head multiplayer, global events take place on every drop in the game, where each drop will be a single event held for a pre-determined amount of time. Certain events will have an entry fee, and that fee totals into a larger prize pool. (Certain events are also free, where the pool is also predetermined) Competing in the event will place you in one of five brackets dependant on your score, and the higher bracket you place in, the larger the percentage of the prize pool you obtain. Certain events will also have pre-determined conditions, such as a Survival event in New Zealand banning you from using Pulse Goggles. (i.e.: FOG EVERYWHERRRRRRE) As you’re competing, the game will race some ghosts against you from various tiers, as well as insert any real-time players on the track. It gives you the great sense of playing against others, while still having the ghost to race down the track. It’s the combination of everything great about the game into an online event, and it gets you money. There’s nothing to not like about it. I seriously love it. Just like I seriously love the game.

Oh, god, and I haven’t even talked about how it remixes your music on the fly. Like, holy shit. I don’t want to delve into stuff about my music, but you should try it out with some breakbeat and drum and bass. Those two genres were made for SSX and its remix feature.

Lastly, there’s been art. As I am typing this, I realized that I stupidly planned this section without thinking that I am actually at my dad’s right now, away from all of my schoolwork and stuff. I’ll talk about what I can, but this will be a lot shorter than I had planned...

So while I don’t have any school work to share, I do have this personal piece that I am working on. It takes up two pages in my sketchbook, which add up to a combined size of 17x22 inches. It’s... pretty big. I started doodling out some stuff, made the character, and thought it would be kind of neat if I crammed the whole thing full of stuff with as much detail as possible. So I started dicking around with circular shapes and, 15 or-so-hours later, I am at this point. It’s about nearly done, with probably an hour or two more of work to put in.

There’s also been these stupid drawings I’ve done of myself and others, mostly because I’ve found a good amount of stress relief in drawing really silly shit. I’ve never really let loose with any of my art, so it’s a really nice change of pace and heart. I like silly. I love silly. I love being silly and drawing silly.

That... just about covers it, I think. I can’t think of anything more I’d have to talk about. I look forward to a week of doing nothing other than eating, sleeping, and playing games, so you can expect a whole bunch more of that nonsense when I get back next Sunday.

Until then, thanks for reading. And... I don’t know, don’t get yourself killed or something. :’D

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Last week's post!

Hey, an actual update this week!

... Well, not really. I'm still steep in midterms, unfortunately. BUT! It all ends this week. Friday marks the start of a well-deserved reading week. :D As such, I'll actually be able to write!

But in the mean time, you get a small update. I've been playing a crap-ton of SSX, and I can't wait to talk more about it. I'll elaborate on it waaaaaaay more next week, but what you can expect is that I like it very, very, very much. Also, some stuff on the two new Modern Warfare 3 maps and how... tepid I am, I guess, to the whole thing. I'll also talk about what's been taking up so much of time. Ugh, school. This semester's being a real bastard.

But as it is now, I need to get back to this dumb homework. Stupid paint. I feel like a jerk for constantly delaying this blog, but... well, yeah. I didn't see all this work coming. Sorry. :<

As usual, here's another wonderful Birgirpall BF3 video to pass the time.

I actually wanted to have a post today. Honest. I spent all weekend in homework (and still am in so), and every time I told myself I'd save up a little spot to write stuff.

Then, out of nowhere, it's 30 minutes past the time I normally post, and I haven't written shit.

So again, I am sorry. This week is midterms, and it's made the past few days infinitely more of a rush then they should have been. I swear to you, there will be something up next week. I promise. <3

In the meantime, here is more Battlefield 3 nonsense.

No blog this week. Too busy with school work and other stuff. I will get back next week, on schedule, with an actual topic and stuff. Sorry guys, but sometimes you just gotta take a personal day. :(

Have this great Battlefield 3 video, instead:

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Last week's post