If you have ever wanted to check out some of the best commented game walktrhoughs, I highly recommend magemasher22′s channel. Currently he’s playing the Metal Gear Solid High Definition Collection which I have to say looks pretty good. I hope you like it as well.
For those of you that are wanting to take five and watch some calming scenery from across Japan’s various areas without having some anime reference flashing in front of your face at 54 beats per minute, then check out Japan Scene’s channel on Youtube (link). You’ll definitely appreciate the picturesque quality of the images and delivery of the subject matters through video.
Alright, I admit, I have gone back to playing Oblivion. Even with the last updates that I added in the last post talking about how I would have finally wanted to stop playing Oblivion, I’ve come to end up playing it yet again. After MikeOn314, along with a few other people that I know that have played Oblivion when it came out along with the subsequent DLCs, I’ve come to understand now that it’s all about constantly questing while peppering your quests wayside travels. This involves getting lost in some areas to end up finding shrines of some deities of questionable morals and ethics, making potions out of herbs that you find at random around your environment, raising your acrobatics, athletics, and what have you while getting into fights all the time and looting.
There is so much more to add to that list but it’s definitely constantly about going around and meeting objectives that allows you to really feel that the pacing of the game is accelerating to a particular direction and manner where you don’t feel like you’re just mining through a game needlessly or mindlessly. The sense of purpose is the drive of the game along with exploration. So what then of the main quest of the game? Well it turns out from what many tell me is that the main quest is….not very interesting. And given the descriptions of how many have played the game before me, the best way to play oblivion – and Skyrim if you happen to be playing that game as well – is to allow detours to “happen” along the way. It’s sort of like doing what happenes in Lord of the Rings, where you have your starting party and you think that the story is going to continue in the particular pace and direction when suddenly something happens or a decision is made where your character ends up following a great detour or a set or two of detours. And all of this may seem, when observed in detail, as isolated obstructions, but then allow you to witness the building of the character(s). Which then all comes together once you come back to the “main course”, if you will, and you then realize that all the trails and detours really helped put a zest to the main quest overall – from start to finish.
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It’s been two years and some odd months since I put together my gaming rig: the SSM1 (Sonokamome System Model 1) and I’ve decided that it would be fun to think about the specs for the next rig, SSM2. Now, given that the economy is really bad in most parts of the world, and that due to calamities in the weather that have affected the production of some hardware components in key manufacturing plants in the world, I can’t really enact in being active with purchasing hardware. Plus, I’ve already spent enough on the current rig for hardware and software (the former lately being hardware).
In the last two years since putting together SSM1, I’ve upgraded the video graphics card: first started the build off with a Nvidia GTX 260, followed by a year later with an upgrade to a GTX 460, and then a year later with the current GTX 570. Each card as relatively set me back a bit during the time that they were purchased, I’ve learned that for upgrading something important like a video graphics card, it’s best to go back to budgeting and planning ahead…sort of.
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Assuming you have finally figured out what you want out of your custom computer and you want to figure out a system to keep track of the cost as you go around shopping, I’d like to move on to the topic of budgeting.
Usually this is where most people window shop, make a list, and then sum up the grand total (subtotal + applicable taxes + shipping and handling + misc costs for purchase). But this usually ends up being a waste of time, or rather, the time that could have been allocated to carefully check the parts and price is now shifted to the time now used to “restart” the window shopping, listing, and re summing the grand total again. In other words: if you simply have a list of parts that you would like to buy without the researching the prices and taking a second look at comparable products of similar or same performance, purchase costs, cost of purchase from particular retailer, then costs could go quickly up past the initial estimated budget cost as you purchase your parts as you go along.
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Many may have heard this piece in the movie Babel but in fact that piece is from an earlier piece that Sakamoto has played in his 1991 album Heartbeat. It was also the a piece that a few years later would have lyrics added to by Sakamoto for his electronic album SMOOCHY. Enjoy (^_^).
So after checking all the games that I bought during the Valve’s Steam Winter Sale along with the games that I have accumulated from Humble Indie Bundle sales, I’ve realized that I’ve got more than enough gaming content to last me for two to three and half years worth of accumulated time. And that’s a conservative estimate to the amount of time it would take to get through every single one of these title’s entire content. So…just for kicks here’s the list of the games I’ll have to get through (somehow) within this year. The order is in the matter of whatever I think is supposed to be finished first.
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You can’t talk about Silent Hill without mentioning about Akira Yamaoka. Yamaoka’s work has been integral to the series as his signature brand of compositions to the series, especially in the first three games of the series, to tell the story of Silent Hill in more abstract manners. You have to remember that Silent Hill was thought initially as being nothing more than a knock-off the whole survival-horror heavyweight at the time of release of the first installment back in 1999 to the Resident Evil series (which had just seen the release of it’s second installment at the time). But what many people have come to find is that the game is an entirely different monster that, although it does not have the obvious horrors such as that of zombies and mutated creatures from experiments gone wrong, you have instead a heavy dose of the supernatural being involved instead. So whenever the horror of a game deals with a source that can be generally classified as “supernatural”, “paranormal”, or “other worldly” in origin, then you can safely bet that the scares are going to be very much cerebral and/or one that wrecks the nerves by the very fibers.
And so it is with, not necessarily the visuals, as it is the music accompanying the visuals. Many gamers, especially today – like movie-goers – forget the power of a good composition to accompany a scene or scenario. If you have the right composition to accompany in the background story telling, you can easily amplify and frequent even more the intensity of the situation depicted in the media that’s telling the story.
And so it is so true in Silent Hill with Yamaoka’s work.
I figured it would be fun to post this because, as we all know, new year resolutions are meant to be really a comical device since we tend to always break them than keep them. So without wasting further time here’s my list of new year’s resolutions…that I’ll break.
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Note: I tried to translate this song as best as I could so if there are any errors please let me know.
Spanish LyricsAcaricia mis sueno.
El suave mormuyo de su suspirar
como rie la vida
si tus ojos negros me quieren mirar.
El dia que me quieras.
La rosa se engalana
se vestiran de fiesta
con su mejor color.
Y al viento las campanas
diran que ya es mio.
Y locas las fontanas. Se contaran tu amor.
La noche, que me quieras, desde el azul del cielo.
las estrellas de losas. Nos miraran pasar.
Y un rayo mysterioso aranido en tu pelo.
Luciernaga curiosa, que vera? Que eres mi consuelo.
Y un rayo mysterioso anadido en tu pelo.
Lucernaga curiosa, que vera?
Que eres mi consuelo.
“El dia que me quieras…”
As it caresses my dreams
The soft murmur of your sigh
How life laughs
Since your black eyes want to look at me
That day that you should want me
The rose that decorates
Will dress up festively
With it’s best color
And the wind will blow on the bells that ring
That you are now mine
And the crazy fountains will tell of your love
The that you should want me, from the blue of the sky
the stars from the flagstones will see us pass by
And a mysterious ray added in your hair
Curious firefly, what will it see? That you are my consolement
Spoken: The that you should want me