Wtf is going on?

Last week we had the hottest weather on record for this time of year in Scotland. This week we have snow? 0_o

Anyways...it doesn't really matter, I've got a lot of work to do for uni so I doubt I will be going out unless I have to. Yesterday I had nearly finished a lab report that needed to be handed in by thursday, and I was about to get back to studying for the final exams. What do they do? Throw us a curveball by letting us know a log book needed to be handed in by Thursday as well (as it is the last day of term.) Throughout the semester, we had been told that we didn't really need to hand these in as they weren't assessed unless it was a borderline pass/fail thing, then they might take the clinic log books into account. Now we apparantely have to hand them in with whatever we have in them. This kind of threw my planning off, so I'm headed back into the clinic for (hopefully) the last time this semester to get some readings with some of the tests I didn't fill into my log book...

This course is pretty terribly planned out sometimes...why give us only a few days to sort out our log books? I suppose I shouldn't worry about it too much, they probably won't use most of them in the marking...

Back to finishing up my lab report and studying I suppose =p

Game rant

I was in Game during the week with some friends from uni and the company (who owns Gamestation as well) has been in the news a lot recently. They said that they wouldn't be getting a lot of games at launch (for what seems to be financial reasons.) Mass Effect 3, Mario Party 9, Street Fighter x Tekken, Asura's Wrath and some other EA titles I think..
Add to that the fact that they are having a fire sale (which they call a spring clean) on preowned stock and the future doesn't look terribly good for the company.
So anyways, I heard about all this crap online and remembered I still had a fair bit of money on a gift card from the Christmas break. I'd picked up Dodonpachi Resurrection on sale with it at Christmas for £15, and then a replacement Xbox 360 charger cable and battery pack as mine had gone missing... So that left me some for the sales.
So as I was saying I was in the shop...I was rooting through the preowned sale stuff for ages, while I finally decided on Dragon Age II on the 360.
The reason I had held off buying this game was because I had grown more and more pissed off with EA and Bioware (who I belive are being pressured into releasing tonnes of DLC and pushing games out for release prematurely) after Mass Effect 2's debacle. Ok, so way back, I picked up Mass Effect and at that point, I was really happy with it so of course was looking forward to getting the 2nd one at launch. I had my eye on the special edition pack for some DLC codes and more than that, some nice extras. Didn't think I needed to preorder though, so went into Game (fuck this store, seriously) to see if they had any. Nope. The idiot working there told me it was just preorders for the special edition. Oh well...none for me then? Nope. I had to have it, I wouldn't admit defeat, so as soon as I went home, I went on ebay and paid about 80 or 90 quid for it. I bloody regretted it and had a sour taste in my mouth from then onwards. Even moreso when the game arrived and the Cerberus network DLC wouldn't work for me. I don't know wtf was going on with it. I played the game and really enjoyed it though, I suppose thats what matters. In between that and ME1, there was Dragon Age: Origins, which I had a similar experience with...again concerning Game. I didn't preorder. Ok before you judge me, they are stupid when it comes to preorders...some of the time you'll have to pay, sometimes they won't get enough in for the preorders they have...I just don't trust them. Anyway, I went all over Edinburgh looking for the special edition of DA:O. Pretty much every store sold out of it. Did some phone calls and found that the branch at the other end of Edinburgh (past my house from town) so I went home and got a lift out there to the shopping centre. Went to pick it up (thankfully they still had a copy or two), got asked for ID as it was an 18. I was 18 at the time, but hadn't brought ID. Ok, this is bullshit. I was so frustrated after spending the entire day finding this special edition. I just walked out, went to the car and told my mum...she knew how pissed off I'd been for the day, so went in and picked it up for me thankfully. I understand why they need to restrict some games, but it always seems to happen to me when I don't have my goddamn ID with me. Plus among my friends I am usually the eldest one there. Its happened at clubs and stuff as well. I should start taking ID wherever I go I suppose...damn young looks I apparantely have...
So back to the present day.
I'm in Game and I decide on Dragon Age II. I'm guessing you can see where this story is going. I take it up there to pay with my gift card which had a tenner on it (I thought) ~ £7.99 for DAII and a 2 pound set of headphones for my psp. Pretty good prices...
The guy looks at me (in my shirt and tie from the day of clinic at uni-I'll come back to this) and says hesitantly that they have an "as 25 age policy." I shuffle in my pocket for my passport and realise its at home..I'm like "I don't have my passport with me" and just walk away. He tries to get me to pay for the headphones but I explain I didn't want them as I had a tenner on my gift card and wanted to use it up.
I leave pretty pissed off...
Like I was saying, I was pretty smart that day, with suit trousers, shirt and tie as I'd had my first paid patient in uni for an optometric refraction lab. So I was clean shaven and shit, but what pissed me off is what would the old lady that came in think of me if I looked like a kid or something...respect from the patient is something I am worrying about...I should say, I am 25, so I shouldn't worry as much as some of the others in the class who came straight from school and are 19 or so now.

I wanted to come back the next day anyway with my passport, find that fucker and show him how old I am. But I thought I'd look in a different branch and see if they had anything decent, some games like the Atelier games on PS3 always seem to be expensive but interesting...anyway, this was on the Thursday (which is normally the day when shops are open later) so we got there pretty late after half 5 when we finished uni. I had a look and found a lot of good stuff in the sale-Super Paper Mario, Epic Mickey for under a tenner, Battalion Wars 2 for 2 quid, Dragon Quest Monster: Joker 2 for 13, no Borderlands or DAII though..2 games I'd been considering. Anyway, they were closing so I went for Joker 2 and prepared to add in 2 or 3 quid ontop of my gift card. The guy said that it covered it though, so I did some calculations and realised I had more than I thought-15 beforehand.

So it kinda sucked that it shut early, but we headed along to Buchanan Galleries to the other game where I'd been the day before and got ID'd for Dragon Age 2. I was thinking of getting it, but I would have had to put in like 6 quid...and thats not a lot, but at the time I didn't have a lot of money to spare. So I picked up Trauma Center: New Blood on the Wii for £1.99 or so. I'd wanted to get into those games for a long time.
And that finished up my reward card from Christmas.
Starting off with £40 on it, I got;
Dodonpachi Resurrection (360) £15
Xbox 360 Plug and Play Charge Kit £10
Dragon Warrior Monsters: Joker 2 (DS) £12.98
Trauma Center: New Blood (Wii) £1.98

So after all that, I don't have Dragon Age II. I can get it for next to nothing online...so that'll probably be the case when I can be bothered...

I'm gonna get a replacement reward card from Game so I can spend my points I've accrued over the years just incase they go under. To be honest, as much as I rant about them and say they suck, I don't think I'd want them and Gamestation to go under...as that would leave us without high street game retailers in the UK.

Whoa...long rant is long.

I am dissapoint.

Just a kind of mini-rant on the way things are going in the RPG genre of video games. I remember a couple months back being really interested in a few of the games that we now know more about. There seems to be a general trend of mainstreaming the genre. Let me quickly add to that before you close the tab. That isn't necessarily the thing that bugs me. There are some RPGs that would definitely be considered mainstream that are perfectly good games, I would say the Pokemon games and slowly more the Dragon Quest series are decent mainstream role playing games. It is the dumbing down and the blurring of genre boundaries that usually ends up annoying me more with games that could have done so well.

So I better give some examples of what I mean.

One of the best selling (I think) RPG franchises in the west currently, the Mass Effect games have been on a worrying downwards trend into generic, safe territory. The first one had some rather deep customisation options, a retarded (but deep) inventory system and some other aspects that would mean that it definitely is an RPG. Ok, I don't have problems with shooters, or games that are cross-genre, definitely not. In fact, I think a lot of the best games are those that manage to transcend boundaries successfully. But it seems with the movement to the 2nd ME game, they saw that Call of Duty games, Halo games, Gears of War games sell well and they decided to move more towards the shooter end of the spectrum, ditching some of the more hardcore RPG elements that really helped give the first game the feel it had. So it seems to me that the series is evolving, moving away from its roots. I may just be an old cynic, or one of those people who isn't too keen on change (I would say I'm ok with change) but I'm not 100% happy with the Mass Effect series and the way it is going. They are still excellent games, both of them though, don't get me wrong!

E3 has done little to dispel these concerns for me, with the announcement that ME3 will be using Kinect as an optional extra. Sure, its only for minor things like voice commands, but they've tried this in one of the Tom Clancy games (I think) before, and it really didn't work too well from what I heard. Kinect is interesting, but I think it is aimed more at a casual market, for easy to pick up and play games like Just Dance or Kinectimals and whatnot.

Some other recent examples might be Hunted: The Demon Forge, which was recently released on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. It looked like it would be a rather decent RPG, but it looks like a rather badly put together Gears of War clone with a fantasy RPG skin. Metacritic Link To be honest, I don't think this game is going to do very well. People have become a bit disinterested in the Gears of War games recently, I've noticed...so really who is going to want an more obscure version of them?

Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale and Dungeon Siege III looked like they could hit a sweet spot for me. Heavily loot-driven dungeon crawling type games. Recently I've been trying to find either a good Diablo esque game, either clones or one of the Diablo games themselves, I have both. So the best I could do was play a bit of Diablo II, its still at the top of the pack in my opinion. DnD: Daggerdale looks to have been really rushed out, and its getting some terrible reviews. Gamespot Link It also apparently has some game breaking bugs all throughout, especially in the multiplayer, which would have been a strong selling point of the game for me. Dungeon Siege III is one I've been interested in for a while now, as I played the first game in the series and was pleased with it. This one from what I've heard on a few podcasts and seen in videos seems to have been watered down slightly. It sounds more like the X-Men Legends games that were on consoles a few years back. So more co-op driven and hack and slashy and perhaps simplified. I'm really hoping this one doesn't dissapoint me.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning are two other games which really could be good if they change things up from games that have come before. Square Enix are capable of making decent games, even though things might not necessarily be as strong as they once were, so they could definitely do something with the mythology they've built up in FFXIII. I just hope they make some big changes from the first game, as there was a lot there that I didn't enjoy (even though I put in a lot of time to XIII, nearly platinuming it...)

Goddamn, its freezing...

The other day, our Combi boiler broke down, which means we have no central heating or hot water from the taps. So its pretty damn cold here, seriously, the other day I had about 3 or 4 layers of clothes on, 2 scarves and a pair of gloves and my feet were still numb.

Anyway, the repairmen came up and fixed it, so we had heating for a night and a bit..but the same problem came up again now, so it is back to the cold until at least Monday, when someone will be able to come out and fix it again. Something seems crappy about this company, the boiler, or maybe the repair people's job...

At least the weather is getting a bit more mild, and the snow is melting away...somehow its still very cold inside though.

To be honest, I don't wanna sound moany-I prefer being too cold rather than too hot, but its no fun having numb hands, makes killing monsters in MHFU harder =p

Red Wii...

This looks rather awesome. If it is shiny though, a Matt finish would look slightly less good somehow. Its still not quite up to the level of appeal of the Black one though.

Its good Nintendo is bringing so many colours to the DS and Wii range now, but...why did they not include Motion Plus in the Wii controllers from the start? -_-

I've not played my Wii in a while and I don't really want to have to buy 300 peripherals for it if I want to play new games, but its turning into that slowly, I now need to get a Classic controller and a Motion Plus at some point. They have lots of cool games on the Wii store or whatever its called. So many people don't even use it, and its a shame.

I kind of want to get the Black classic pad that comes with Monster Hunter Tri..I really should have bought that at launch as its now fairly expensive. But I was still majorly on the fence about Monster Hunter. (I still am, but not so much)

Thats it for now, a mild, quarter strength rant or maybe its just a talk about the Wii.

Stupid temperature...

There have been some really cold days this week and last week, giving me a kind of on/off cold and sore throat which I can't seem to get rid of completely. 

But today it was fairly mild, just ridiculously wet for the most of the day. So I can understand that they would have the heating on in the uni buildings, but man...they kinda overdid it. It was roasting pretty much everywhere I went. I was actually sweating at times... ;_; I even felt like I was gonna pass out and fall asleep later on in the library. I had to go upstairs to find a cooler floor of the library to work in.

Now, I'm not exactly saying that they should leave the heating off or pump cool air through the air conditioning, but I hate it when its like this..it makes it so hard to keep alert...a few other people I was talking to said they were falling asleep too.

I don't even know why I'm posting this here..maybe just venting some steam or something. I like having a blog for this kind of outpouring of my mind.

What it looked like in my uni lecture theatres:

Perhaps minus the sun...

Playstation Plus rant!

So..what is the point in this service? You pay quite a bit per year: $49.99, £39.99 per year in the UK. 

What do you get for that? 

"What does PlayStation Plus include?
PlayStation Plus includes premium gaming features such as Full Game Trials and Automatic Download of demos, game updates and system software updates. PlayStation Plus also includes PlayStation Store special offers, such as game downloads, discounts, early access to demos and beta trials and other exclusive goodies."

Full game trials? No thanks Sony they were free before you introduced this. Demos? Really? I don't want to pay for them, so get to f**k! Game Updates and System Software updates? Wow. Wow, that sounds AMAZING! Seriously Sony, get a grip! You just started turning a profit on each of your ps3s, you have slowly started getting there, but this is not a good idea. Neither is Move. Sony is going to start losing money again soon if they don't realise they are fuckin idiots to have given stuff like this the go ahead. Discounts and exclusive stuff perhaps could be good, but over here there is a lot of stuff that looks shitty that they could just give away on this scheme.

http://uk.playstation.com/playstationplus/

http://us.playstation.com/psn/playstation-plus/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Plus#PlayStation_Plus

Seriously, why did I buy a PS3? They don't have that many good games I think yet, the online support is inferior to xbox live, Sony don't give a damn about Europeans, why can't we get the same fucking shit that American PSN users get? FUCKING idiotic pricks!

In fact a lot of the stuff Sony does at the moment pisses me off. Example, the latest official system update for the PSP, 6.20 or 30 I'm not entirely sure. You'd think since they don't release these that often, they'd include important patches or stuff that actually matters. Wrong. What does this one include? 

"The PSP® system software version 6.30 update includes the following:

Game

[By Format] has been added to the options menu for [Group Content].
Games can now be grouped and displayed in folders based on format under [Game].
To sort games by format, select a game icon, and then press the button."

Was that really worth 10 or 15 minutes of my time and a goddamn compulsory download before I could access the PSN store on my PSP? Seriously, are the people working at Sony feeling alright? Are they mentally ill? Are they even human, or have they decided to employ invertebrates who squish their boneless foreheads against the keyboard to program these updates?

Fuck..got RRoD again.

Goddamnit..I barely play my 360, but I turn it on earlier today to play some Blazblue, and it chooses to get Red Rings of Death during the one time I've payed for xbox live gold? I barely every pay for the online. Fucking shitty ass console...

I wanted to play some Blazblue... :@ 

I swear to god, if they don't send me the same kind of Xbox back as a replacement, heads will roll. I've got a limited edition Halo 3 xbox and don't want some inferior white replacement, for one thing, the HD will not fricken match it. RAR! ¬_¬

I don't think my warranty is still active. So I have to pay for M$'s failure. Fantastic, I thought I had a bit too much money. Hopefully it ain't expensive.

Beyond Good and Evil can get to *#@?k!

So earlier on I was playing a bit more of Beyond Good and Evil, trying to finish it off, since I was pretty near the end. Its not the longest game I've ever played by any means, it really only takes about 9-12 hours or so to finish from what I read online, but this is what happened. I am slowly getting into Beyond Good and Evil's world the further I get in it, the controls and camera becoming less of a problem and the entire feel of the game was growing on me. So I just finished the Slaughterhouse section of the game and got back to the city, and was mopping up some in between stuff before I moved on to the next story section. I must've saved it as I was doing this stuff, and then tried to progress, only to find my partner in the game had dissapeared, and without him, I could not go further (there are switches and puzzles you need to co-op on). Apparantely this is a pretty common gamebreaking glitch, the only way to get around it is to reload an older save game where they had not yet dissapeared. 

Problem for me, since I was using 1 save game for the entire game. Oh well...the only way for me to get any further now was to restart the entire game. No way, not when I am borderline on liking the game or not. 

It really annoys me, because I've played games for HUNDREDS of hours and not had any problems from glitches. RPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, Pokemon, Dissidia each for absolutely ages. Some of them, like pokemon have so many parameters and different things hidden that could go wrong and have obscure game breaking glitches. No, that I've seen. The game that I am struggling to get through and is tiny compared to some of those games has a really common glitch that a lot of people get. 

Get a grip Ubisoft. Playtesters should have easily seen stuff like this.

I'm gonna trade the game in. No way am I wasting 10 hours of my life again only to find it breaks on me again.

Stupid fuckin game is overrated anyway. I'm not even gonna bother looking for the rest on a lets play on youtube. Too damn frustrated.

Y'know how we got into Recession?

Yeah, people. You remember something called the credit crunch? Global recession? Some countries are still pretty much screwed up in terms of economy. How do you think we got into this mess? This is why. People clearly have more money than common sense.

Anywhere between £90 and 120 or so for 1 game with ridiculous chunks of plastic. Yeah, Halo Reach, I'm looking at you.

Now personally, I am quite partial to limited editions or collectors editions, but within reason...c'mon, it'll have to have good content for a reasonable price for me to pick it up. I give them bonus points if they are gonna go crazy in value shortly after release. 

And obviously I don't seriously think these kinds of purchases actually lead to the global recession, that'd be stupid. But seriously, how many people shell out over £100 for ONE game, especially when the game is only gonna be a couple hours long. Ridiculously awesome examples like the Modern Warfare 2: 'Night Vision Goggles' edition or whatever it was called...I mean, how many people buy the top of the range editions? They are too expensive...

Again, thats one reason I prefer RPGs, you get a serious amount for your money in many cases.

My mind meanders...

So that is me done my first week of first year at uni now. How did it go? Hmm, well its been alright so far, a bit confusing with all the different information that has been chucked our way ie. the Tutorials, Workshops, Labs and Lectures and their respective times and locations. And then there are the assignments and exercises we need to do online for each of my 3 courses, Engineering, Chemistry and Maths. Doesn't sound too bad you think? Well, Engineering 1 is split up into 4 different disciplines in the first year, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering, of which we have to take at least 2. Maths is split up into 2 courses in the first semester, Applicable Maths 1 and Mathematical Methods 1, both compulsory. Each different course has different ways to check and submit your stuff online, MasteringChemistry, WebCT, myED, uni email, MapleTA. I don't see why they cant just make it more simple and user friendly and cut some of the crap ones out. Makes it pretty hard for freshers to actually understand what the hell they are talking about sometimes.

Then theres the labs, tutorials, workshops etc, I need to do 1 maths tutorial a week, 3 workshops for engineering over semester 1, which I need to put my name down for either Tues 2-5pm or Thurs 2-5pm in Weeks 2-4 for the first one, and the same again in subsequent weeks. Then there are the tutorials for Engineering, 2 of them every 3 weeks I think. And if I dont get in to the workshops or tutorials, I will lose marks. This is kinda a possibility for some people as there are like almost 400 people in the class and only a max of 70 or 80 I think they said could be taken in each workshop room, and less than that for tutorials I'd imagine. 

Half the time the lecture theatres are full and there are people sitting in all the stairs around the place =/

Couldnt the uni have made some bigger lecture theatres, or just split the class up into 2 groups for different times or location for the lectures? Sometimes it frustrates the hell out of me that universities can be so poorly organised. So far, I definitely dont like the idea of having to put my name down for each non-lecture class for engineering. They should have just assigned us times like the Chemistry lot did.

So the timetable is pretty confusing, I've already managed to miss 2 lectures in the first week, but so far I'm getting used to it and getting there on time surprisingly! One was just purely my forgetfullness, well maybe they both were. I'd seen that they had moved one of the Maths lectures to wednesday as a result of the Bank Holiday on Monday this week, but just forgot to turn up really. Today, the 2nd I missed was because the lectures are either in LT4 or LT5, I didnt double check my timetable before I headed into the one that they are usually in (LT5) and sat down for Maths at 9:00, then 45 mins through, I realised I was meant to be in Chemistry in the lecture theatre next door. -_- I take the maths lectures at 12 instead of 9:00 so I can get to my Chem lectures. 

And another kick in the teeth is the fact that I seem to have caught the fresher's flu...its ridiculous how many people are coughing in the lectures, so within a day or two I seem to have got the plague they all pretty much have. Haven't they heard of fruit and vegetable? lol, well I remember from my days in halls for my last degree that students aren't exactly the healthiest bunch. Still, I'm pretty annoyed I caught this...I've been trying to keep healthy and it hasn't kept it out T_T

Anyway, that was probably boring and too long hehe...excuse my ranting/ramblings...

Rant Mode Turn On!

I dunno...some little, minor stuff really seems to annoy me at times. Like on Ebay, I occasionally buy stuff off there (mostly games) and little things piss me off. Like when I leave feedback for someone and the seller just doesnt bother leaving it for me. Thats not really the main thing though, as its feedback. I mean, the game arrived in a few days and everything, so I'm not entirely bothered about a little positive feedback. Still, if they see themselves as efficient sellers, shouldnt they give out feedback? I can see why they dont necessarily, some sellers might have a lot of transactions to deal with...but still, get with it people!

And other times, stuff hasnt arrived at mine. I've bought whatever items they might have been. Admittedly, I don't think it has really happened in a while, it was mostly back when I used to play CCG's and TCG's like Magic and Yugioh. It was pretty fricken annoying when I spent like a tenner on a card and they hadnt given the option for recorded or insured posting so when it got lost in the post, or they just didnt send it (its a goddamn possibility, and it makes sense) I was £10 and they could actually keep it or sell it again for more profit. So its fuckin things like these that piss me off about ebay, that and the stupid amount of money I end up spending on it. 

If they can change anything about it, sellers should be more flexible, they should offer other options for shipment, just as they do for payment options. 

I've also been getting dissapointed with football, both club (Celtic FC) and country (Scotland), performing badly... I mean, Hapoel Tel Aviv were so bad in the first half...how the hell did they manage to win in the end? Cos Celtic didnt go out and get more goals, and cos they got more and more into the game as a result of Celtic just becoming more slack....

And don't even get me started on Scotland's failure to qualify for World Cup 2010 in South Africa...

Gah..thats enough of minor stuff niggling at my brain like some kind of pestilence. Its not even that it annoys me that much, just slightly. Like this is a minor-rant, or half-rant.

Champions League: The Aftermath..

So Celtic lost their Champions League qualifier against Arsenal last night after 2 frustrating legs of the tie. The first one more or less won it at Celtic Park, with 2 Arsenal away goals which were quite lucky. One late first half free kick, heavily deflected, wrong footed Boruc and one Caldwell own goal later in the game.. =(
I say they were lucky, but Arsenal did have a lot of chances to score at other times, so I guess the constant flowing game and pressure they put on the Celtic defense paid off. Still, it was a hard result to accept for me. If those goals hadn't gone in the 2nd leg would have been there to win. Still, shit happens. Here's a video with some highlights: [Link]

Arsenal 2 - 0 Celtic (Agg 2 - 0) 1st Leg, Final Round Champions League Qualifier, 18.08.09

So that was the first leg, a week ago. The 2nd leg in London proved just as excruciating if not moreso than the first. Early on, a controversial penalty was given to Arsenal. Here's a highlights video: [Link] This to me, and a whole load of other people looked like a complete dive. No contact was really made with Eduardo by Boruc it seemed, yet a pen was given and Eduardo put it away to make it 1-0 on the night and 3-0 on aggregate... It only got worse as the night went on. McDonald scored not long after, but it was ruled offside (which it was. >.<) Arsenal had many more chances throughout the night and it ended up 3-1, Celtic scoring a concelation (sp?) goal with the last kick of the match. Arsenal 3 - 1 Celtic (Agg 5 - 1) 2nd Leg, Final Round Champions League Qualifier, 26.08.09 So there are a few things I thought I'd talk/rant about. (I'll try keep it brief so you don't lose interest) First, the amount of money Arsenal have available for transfers, wages, training etc. Scottish clubs have a lot less money compared to big sides like Arsenal, Man Utd, Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan etc. and this really impacts on the players they can bring to the sides and the progress they can make in the European competitions (Champions League and the now Europa League.) I guess that gulf in spending power and skill really showed over the 2 legs of this Champions League Qualifier, depressing... They had Gordon Strachan in the studio for the first leg analysis during half time and after the game and he talked about this issue as well. It does seem that there really isn't much that can be done about it apart from giving Scottish clubs and other smaller European teams more money. There must be some ways they can even out the playing field a bit, because there is a huge divide it seems. This may seem like me moaning and trying to make excuses but its not, I can accept the defeat and move on, I just wanted to post some football related stuff as I don't do it often. Anyway, now for the core of the rant. You could probably guess it was going to be about the Eduardo penalty. Well yeah, how could I not be pissed off it at? I almost broke a chair when I saw the ref had given it. Watch some highlights or news if you haven't seen it already (I linked earlier on) and you'll see that there wasn't really a lot of contact and Eduardo seemed to go down pretty easy. I really hate that diving or "simulation" as various football commentators have called it is part of the game still so much a part of the game...it doesn't really go in the spirit of the game and I think referees and officials should hand out more punishment for when they don't get tricked by stupid theatrics, yellow cards, red cards-whatever might stop it happening. However, I don't think it should stop there. Nope, thats not enough in some cases. Fair enough in the Celtic Arsenal game last night, it was already 2-0 on aggregate beforehand and this wasn't a tie-breaking decision by any means. In some games though, big decisions by officials really have cost teams badly and I think that should really stop. I said last night, I would accept the result and forget about it as long as Eduardo got punished for his "acting" skills in some way. I wanted a fine or a ban and it seems I'm not the only one who desires this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/8223917.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/8208690.stm

SFA chief is calling for UEFA to ban Eduardo for this dive, the articles also talk about video evidence and other stuff.

Anyway, I am running out of time (I need to get to the post office to pick something up.) Now that Champions League football is off the cards for Celtic, the Europa League final qualifying round is the next european fixture, drawn on Friday I think, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure, on one hand it will mean a lot more fixtures this year if Celtic are to make good progress through the new format for the Uefa Cup (now known as the Europa League) and this could end up tiring the squad out towards the end of the season. On the other hand, we will get a lot more chances to see Celtic playing other European sides, and I love watching European midweek games.

Edit: I just found out here that I was wrong and that Celtic will be going into the Europa League group stages, and not the final qualifier round. The draw is tomorrow, lets hope its a good one! =p

Some ranting, ramblings and impressions.

Its my friends birthday today and instead of a party or anything, he wanted people do him some graffiti on facebook. For those not on the ever increasingly popular social networking site, this is just like a whiteboard art kind of thing where you can draw or write things for other people or yourself. So I thought, hmm that sounds cool I'll do him one when I get a chance. Took a good hour or so working on one, finally got it the way I wanted and then tried to submit it only for it to stop loading when I tried to send it. I refreshed the page and tried a half dozen times or so. Still nothing. So, that was pretty frustrating and spirit-crushing...Eventually I tried to do another one and intended to include a note with it saying my initial piece didnt work. I put a bit less time into this one but was still happy with it and went to send it. Yep, you've probably guessed what happened with this one. Same thing, it didn't send. Maybe its just life trying to crush me even more, maybe I bring out the worst in computers and websites or maybe its just a compatibility problem with Opera browser and the plugins and whatnot on Facebook, whatever it is, it didnt exactly make me the happiest person in the world. Yeah, Facebook won't be getting signed back on to any time soon.

Also, I tried to sign into my inbox tray for Edinburgh Uni today to check up on and sort out anything I need to do before starting up in September for my first year. The mailbox I had before and could check before was nowhere to be seen. It used to be on the page I was on only now it has apparantely dissapeared in the last few months. Perhaps its me being stupid and not noticing it (which I doubt, cos I combed the whole place), perhaps its just that they have moved it and told noone or maybe they just got rid of the whole system and didn't replace it ( they did say it was experimental and a test, but that seems just retarded.) All I know, is the site and the organisation seems pretty crap. For a university, you'd think they have well orgamanised and easy to use shiz. Obviously not.

My speakers have also been making a crackling, popping and screeching noise recently..kind of annoying to be honest. I hope they aren't on the way to destruction

Given the laptop's and internet's hate of me recently..This T-Shirt would be fitting. Tis pretty cool hehe...lol

To cool off and keep the encroaching boredom away, I played some more of the games I'm working on. I played a little bit of Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, but there seems to be a small but ever-present chance that even random enemies are going to wipe the floor with you and make you their bitches. So after losing a good 20 mins or so of progress, I turned it off. That game is good, but at times its too hard. I mean, I come up against a party of 3 Mothman enemies in the Samsara tunnels about 24 hrs in (for me at least,) These guys are not usually hard, they don't look particulary dangerous from their appearance or abilities. When you come up against 2 of them, they are pretty easy in fact, but something seems to be written in there for a party of 3 of them or maybe its just me being unlucky, I don't know. They keep using abilities like Mazionga and similar stuff, which when it hits all my guys, including the exploit of Argilla's weakness, its pretty damaging and they get an extra half turn counter, so the next one does it, or the one that targets one character and usually hits Argilla, so another turn counter gets added, etc etc, they get a couple extra actions per turn. That doesn't sound like a lot, but when they get lucky, they can wipe me out pretty easy. Screw that....I will beat the game some day though...even if I do have to deal with the unpredictable difficulty and battle system which I am beginning to like less and less. . . Anyway, enough nonsensical ramblings on DDS. Chances are you guys didn't understand half of that wall of text.

So for something a bit easier, I put on Star Ocean: Second Evolution on the PSP. I liked the first one and am about 12 or so hours through the 2nd. So far I'd say the voice acting is pretty weak, even laughable in places (ie. Ashton's dragons) I'm enjoying the game even if the pacing seems a bit strange, I'm kind of able to rush through the game quite fast, gaining levels and skills pretty quickly. The initial small difficulty spikes as you go to a new area are one thing that at times frustrates me and aside from boss battles, thats really the only thing that will lead to a game over as far as I can tell. A lot of the stuff in this game is cliched and it isn't the best game in the world, however its definitely better than a lot of other games out there, especially when you consider the fact that this is PSX-era ported RPG. Saying that, it isn't very polished or improved and feels a bit dated.

There is a lot in the game I like, the character design-the new portraits and anime cutscenes by Production I.G. look for the most part very nice. The character interaction and dialogue that you can get is one thing I appreciate as its not really done the same in most other rpgs. I'm trying to make more of the private actions you can do in this one. These basically involve you pressing square outside a town in order for you to split up your party in the town. You can then talk to townspeople and your party members with your main character, opening up new dialogue options, flashbacks which give a bit of depth to some of the playable characters, you can find other characters joining your party and branching stories which affect the way your characters like each other and ultimately, the game's ending. Kind of similar to the party interaction in Tales of Symphonia and Baldur's Gate. For some parts to remind me of BGII is a great feat, because its still one of my favourite games of all time. Its just something about the detailed world with the pre-rendered backgrounds and the characters in your party talking amongst each other, responding to the actions and choices you take. For example, say you ask someone to join your party, other people you had in your party might not necessarily agree with Claude (one of 2 protagonist's) choice and later down the line, from what I can tell, other party members will not be available to join you. For me, that is kind of dissapointing as I love getting different characters to join and ideally would have them all available on my team. However it does add some weight to your choices, making them feel that bit more real I guess. Also it could potentially add to the replayability factor of the game, but I'll see what I think of the game as I get further in. 

Those are some impressions and ramblings on whatnot, think I said enough. 'Til next time =p

Pokemon..why won't you obey me?!

I've been playing Pokemon Platinum for quite a bit today since I got it the other day. 

I decided before I got the game on a team that I would trade some of across from Diamond to help me through the game. I didn't expect to get so many problems with the pokemon not obeying me. 

Here's my team at the moment, with 1 badge. White text is from Platinum, Silver is from my Diamond game ie. traded across

Grotle lv18

Sneasel lv15

Aerodactyl lv13

Meditite lv13

I had intended to include a Horsea and another, but I gave up on those, I'm gonna pick 2 more up as I go through the game. 

Anyway, here is the problem I was mentioning before. Pokemon that are traded from another game benefit from receiving 1.5x the normal Exp from battles, however they don't always obey the new trainer if you dont have enough badges. So far I have 1 badge, but that doesnt seem to prevent any of my Diamond OT pokes from wacking off or whatever they do in battle, cos it sure aint fighting. My Grotle is lv18, a decent level for where I am in the game and obeys me no question, but the lower level traded pokemon don't! I guess I'm just getting frustrated, but its getting hard to level them when they keep passing their turns and dying.

End of passion play, crumbling away
I'm your source of self-destruction
Veins that pump with fear, sucking dark is clear
Leading on your deaths construction

Taste me you will see
More is all you need
Dedicated to
How I'm killing you

Come crawling faster
Obey your Master
Your life burns faster
Obey your Master
Master

Master of Puppets I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master

Needlework the way, never you betray
Life of death becoming clearer
Pain monopoly, ritual misery
Chop your breakfast on a mirror

Taste me you will see
More is all you need
Dedicated to
How I'm killing you

Come crawling faster
Obey your Master
Your life burns faster
Obey your Master
Master

Master of Puppets I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master

Master, Master, where's the dreams that I've been after?
Master, Master, you promised only lies
Laughter, Laughter, all I hear or see is laughter
Laughter, Laughter, laughing at my cries
Hell is worth all that, natural habitat
Just a rhyme without a reason
Neverending maze, drift on numbered days
now your life is out of season
I will occupy
I will help you die
I will run through you
Now I rule you too

Come crawling faster
Obey your Master
Your life burns faster
Obey your Master
Master

Master of Puppets I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master

Come on, they gotta obey me after I post those awesome Metallica lyrics =p

Oh well, back to the grind. Maybe if I get some more badges it'll even out.

Finished Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance.

I finally completed Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance today, with all of the main endings (I had to look up a guide on how to get them, but meh..)

Its a pretty cool game once you get into it, but still its not as good as some of the other Castlevania titles. Even though its short (took me less than 8 hrs to beat) and very easy, it still had some features I quite liked.

So anyway...after I beat the game with the 3rd main ending, I turned the DS off, victorious at last. Then decided a bit later to turn it back on to have a look at boss rush mode. Turned it on to find I had no data. What the hell?

Yeah, somehow the data had vanished into nothingness just like Dracula's stupid ass castle. No error message, no "your data has been corrupted" message, no nothing. OMG...

I guess the one positive is that it happened after I beat the game and not during it or just beforehand. Still it pisses me off no end. I'm not usually too bothered about keeping backup saves but this is probably gonna change that. I would have smashed stuff in my room, or cried if this had happened on my 60 odd hr Odin Sphere save which is unfinished, but so close to the end.

*Backed up my PS2 saves just incase*

I guess the fact that I hadn't put that much time into the game either means it shouldn't be so hard to take...but I just wish hardware and game testers would pick up on these things. 

Its not my first experience with losing data, its happened before but a long time ago...it sucks. I'm gonna go listen to some angry music and vent some anger now. Arch Enemy sounds good.

Arch Enemy - My Apocalypse

Cradle of Filth - Tonight in Flames

Disarmonia Mundi - Celestial Furnace

Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction

Slayer - Angel of Death

Thats a bit better...metal has some awesome power! \m/

Champions League football.

The 2nd legs of the Champions League semi finals have been and gone now. The Arsenal vs Manchester Utd game was kinda over by about the 8th minute I think it was. Arsenal played about a million miles an hour from the kickoff, thinking they could score, being positive and trying to get some goals. A few defensive mistakes later, and any belief was gone in the Arsenal camp. I would say it ended up being quite a good game to watch, even if it wasnt open for either side, there was some good football played. 

That ended up as Manchester Utd 3-1 Arsenal. (4 - 1 Agg)

Tonight though, there was even more drama. Chelsea looked like they were going through to the final to play Man Utd again (yawn) in the final, after a Michael Essien volley early on. They had kept Barca at bay for so long, even though the spanish side had so much possession, they hadnt translated it to many chances. In the end, the one they did get, it paid off and killed off Chelsea's dreams of being in the final. This took right up till the 93rd minute, where Iniesta struck an equally amazing shot right into the top corner of Cech's goal. Musta been so hard on the Chelsea fans, even more so when they saw that kind of refereeing from this Norwegian(I think) official. To be fair to him, a few of the "penalty" claims didnt look like penalties to me, like the first one, which was just in the box and looked a bit soft. There were a few which could've been given for handball, like the one where Anelka tried to take it around Pique, and it hit his hand. I thought that was ball to hand, as was the Ballack shot and handball, but others would surely disagree, and that coulda been given easily. The Drogba penalty claim was hilarious though, sure there was a shirt-pull in there, but when you act like he did when it wasn't given, you cant be taken seriously. I burst out laughing when I saw his reaction. 

Which was almost as ridiculous as Ballack's protests to the referee after his penalty claim, and even worse, after the game had finished, Drogba's protests to the officials and referee which got him a yellow card. He was complaining, accusing the referee of being a "fucking disgrace." What is definitely disgraceful is the way he acted. There is no place for that kind of behaviour in football, kids could be watching, seeing him as a role model, and thats not going to look good. When Drogba stops being so theatrical, going down looking for penalties and free-kicks and acting like this, he could be an excellent footballer, but as they said on Sky Sports, his reputation is always going to go before him, and right now that is not in his favour. I hope he sees a big suspension for his actions.

Chelsea will probably think they are hard done by, but they cant always blame this kind of result on decisions by referees that didnt go their way. They could have easily put the game away. They didnt play in the first leg, and got no away goals to show for it. They had lots of chances in this game and didnt take any either. They shouldnt rely so much on the officials.

Also, no matter how much it seems something doesnt go their way and how much it infuriates them, I don't like to see Chelsea fans throwing stuff like flags at officials or the Barca bench. You lost, deal with it. Football is harsh sometimes...

Chelsea 1 - 1 Barcelona (1 - 1 Agg) Barca go through as result of away goal.

Champions League Final: Manchester Utd vs Barcelona ~ May 27th, Sky Sports

Link

Link

Xbox and the awesomeness of mangos

Went on Xbox Live for some free Halo 3 online as a result of the XTival this weekend. Still one more day, so check it out if you wanna get the privileges you would get with gold for free. It was kinda fun...but theres even more noobs on there than usual. I'm not saying that I'm amazing, but people were leaving games early, standing still, teamkilling, making stupid noises through the voice chat. I heard the pwned.nl thing being played so many times...I mean when those screams are boring into your soul through the headset...it gets pretty lame fast. I muted and submitted so many negative player reviews within a few hours, it meant that any appeal Halo usually has was lost...it just gets frustrating if people fuck around.

Gah..I'm starting to sound like the guy from that video... >< 

No more FPS for me.

Also, Mangos are a godly fruit. 

Laughing at drunk people is FUN!

So over the course of today I saw loads of drunk people..and I had to laugh at them. I was walking home about half 1oish or so, I had to leave early from my mate's party to get a train back home, the first guy I come across is lying in the middle of the pavement with his iPod on and an empty takeaway box in the other hand. Someone asked if he was alright and he was like, "yeah!" or something lol, another guy had fallen in the subway and pwned himself on the escalator, he had a big escalator mark on his forehead...owch lol. The subway staff were pretty concerned, he'd probably have to go to like hospital or something. Another guy on the underground missed his stop and his friend made it, everyone on there started laughing at him, that was pretty funny hehe...And on the train back through here at half 11(the last Glasgow-Edinburgh train) it was full of drunk idiots...one lass was completely out of it, like unconscious or something. Funny thing was, she was sitting on the outside seat, so when someone tried to wake her up to get past for their stop, that wasn't happening at all. I'd laugh so much if she'd missed her stop by like half an hour or something. Drink can screw people over so bad, its all self inflicted which is the funny thing though.

Omg, I must go to the Square Enix museum in Tokyo. Its got insane merchandise and awesomeness! 

I will make it there some day! :D

PSN/Playstation Store games

Why can't we have decent games on the PSN over here? Japan have an insane library of games available for download on the PS3 and PSP. NTSC people have a decent amount, but over here in the UK, we get the freakin shaft. I mean, theres like 10 games on there. Seriously Sony, stop suckin balls and get some games on there. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Store