FetusZero / Member

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FetusZero Blog

Reappearance elsewhere

As you may have noticed, my good ol' GS friends, I have pretty much disappeared from the website. I've been cheating on you all!! O_O

lol no really, I have found a new site hosted by one of my good ol' GS friend that isn't here anymore, and the site in question is NoobFeed.com. I am now a member over there and am almost as active as I used to be back in the days on here, with its great community (one of the best I've seen, the people over there are polite, respectful, and plain amazing making this an enjoyable stay, even on the forums!).

Now, I wouldn't mind if you people would check out the site, though I know most of you are long time users of GS as I was and might not want to switch over, but if you could show your support to a growing community and at least check out the site, it would be great :]

NoobFeed is slowly growing, as far as I know, it is still fairly new and came to life not too long ago, but it keeps growing and getting better day after day.

I doubt I'll come back to GameSpot, the site has grown to something I wish it didn't in terms of community despite being a great source for news and updates on the gaming industry. I'd say most of the old timers can aggree that throughout the years, it became something entirely different than from what it was back in the days, and I guess it's a fate that awaits any website the bigger they become.

I promised the other people I'd at least tell my GS buddies about it (which I had entirely forgotten to do, to be honest), and I just did. If any of you still want to keep contact though, just drop me a PM or leave a comment and we can arrange something to stay in contact, since if you are in my friends list, you're definitely people I enjoy having in there!

I'm gonna miss that "Top 1000" emblem, that's for sure lol.

GoW Collection completed + Bayonetta

So here I am, after not even a week of owning the God of War Collection, I have Platinumed both games. I must I do not regret buying this, it was great re-experiencing the games in HD, and to those wondering, yes, there is a HUGE difference. Watching videos on the internet that compares the originals to the remastered ones does not do justice. I swear it looks better than a lot of the games I've seen released this generation, even if it simply was remastered with anti-aliasing x2 and whatever else. And more importantly.. it's prettier than 100% of the titles released on Wii lol. It's hard to believe that you can take old PS2 games, add the necessary stuff to make it HD, and have an end result that looks better than some games that were released this generation. It's kinda sad at the same time, though. Anyway, after having played this and the God of War III demo, I am now looking even more forward to grabbing the Ultimate Edition in March 2010, it really got me back into the world of Olympus where a crazy, pissed off protagonist seeks revenge in a greek mythology style. As if I wasn't impatient enough to begin with x_x

Since this is done, I'll go back to my Crushing playthrough in Uncharted 2, and I might just start playing F.E.A.R. Files as well, I'm still undecided as to whether or not I attempt an Extreme playthrough on F.E.A.R. before moving on to the expansions, I'll see if I feel like it.

I recently got my hands on one of the codes GameSpot were giving out for an early access of Bayonetta's demo on X360. I must admit that I had a lot of doubts towards this game.. it's a rip off of Devil May Cry, I think it's made by the same team actually (feel free to correct me on this one), and do we know that rip-offs usually turn out pretty bad, or if they are good, they'll never be as good as the original game it was ripped-off from. Well I am now glad to say that Bayonetta is on my day 1 purchase list! The demo was simply amazing, it's like DMC meets GoW, with less button mashing, but more action and more stuff happening on the screen. I've hardly ever seen a game deliver such epic, chaotic combat scenes that actually turn out to be good. I almost feel epileptic just from having played the first mission they give you in the demo, there is just so many stuff happening while you fight, at first I could hardly tell what was happening, but once you get into it, it just feels great. I recommend anyone with a X360 to try it out, if they're still giving out codes that is, otherwise the demo comes out December 3rd I think. DOWNLOAD IT! Nothing like a crazy, yet beautiful girl in an outfit that is made out of her hair.. yeh.. that's kinda strange, isn't it? Reminds me that I have yet to actually finish DMC4.. if they could officially announce a DMC5, I'd finally go through it.. don't ask, I've got a strange way of playing Devil May Cry games lol.

That's it for now! This blog is widely enough of a mess already, no need to add more lol.

F.E.A.R., God of War and Touhou (new games galore!)

So it all begins with me taking a day off yesterday (Tuesday, November 17th) to go get my hands on my God of War Collection pre-order. Thing is, you see, with the recession and all, the video games business has been pretty slow (some can't tell with the releases and stuff, but on the inside, let me tell you that it's pretty slow), therefore I have less hours at my job which grants me a great day off every week. Since yesterday was the release of the Collection, I decided to take my day off on that day, perfect plan, right?

No. Sony decided to ship the God of War Collection yesterday, instead of a day or two before the release, ending in every single store in the world having to delay the release of 1 day. It doesn't bother me much, as I still went and got it tonight after work, but damn did this make my perfect plan of an entire day spent playing God of War fail. So not to leave empty handed, I got my hands on F.E.A.R. Files, which will lead me to talk about F.E.A.R. first.

I finally finished (well.. finally.. not that it took me a long time lol) the game and I must say.. it was amazing. Despite the fact that I did not understand a single thing about the story itself, which took me two playthroughs to understand. Now that I know more of it, despite of Alma (the little girl in the game) wanting to kill me, I grew an admiration for her, and emotions of anger towards what has happened to her. As I like to say lately:"In the end, despite you wanting me dead, you are a lovely, bloody child." Anyway, as some of you may know, yes, I like going for multiple playthroughs in a game. It not only helps in a better understanding of the story, but it also allows me to hunt for some more Achievements or Trophies depending on the system. F.E.A.R. is now definitely added into my list of personal favorites into the First Person Shooter genre. F.E.A.R. Files basically is the expansion packs released on PC for the game, but crammed onto a disc for X360 since it never made it on the Market Place. It contains two new campaigns, more Instant Action maps and of course, multiplayer, which I don't really care about, especially since the online community for these games is literally dead (specially with games such as Modern Warfare 2 being out right now). I'll still probably give it a third playthrough before engaging the expansions though, as I'd like to do some more Achievements hunting for the ones I am missing in Single Player, but not sure if I'll do these right away.

So tonight I went and got my God of War Collection. My thoughts so far is that the games haven't changed and are still as amazing as they were back then. It has been remastered in 720p, added with anti-alisasing or something and added Trophies, one list for each game meaning two Platinum Trophies. The whole remastering in HD thing really shows off as an upgrade, though the cinematics that are made of in-game graphics will usually be the exact same as they were on PS2, the rest does show quite an improvement. On top of all this, I've gotten a beautiful voucher for the God of War III E3 Demo, which I quickly downloaded and installed. It is quite apparent that the demo is of a product in development, especially in the music department, but let me tell you that this will be an amazing game is the one I am looking forward to the most right now. During this time, I still have plenty of games to keep me occupied. I recommend the Collection to anyone who does not have the originals and wants to try out the games.. heck, even if you have them, buy them again, like I did lol.

I also ordered myself some more Touhou Project games, which are Mountain of Faith (TH10) and Subterranean Animism (TH11). They shipped from Japan on Monday, so I should get them pretty soon, hopefully before the end of the week. I didn't get myself a copy of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (TH10.5) since it is yet another fighting game, sort of like an expansion to Immaterial and Missing Power (TH7.5) and since I am not a big fan of fighters, I'll wait until I have a better budget which will allow me to have a complete collection of the Touhou Project series official games. Now all that's left apart from the fighters is Undefined Fantastic Object, which is the 12th installment, and most possibly the most brutal one to date in terms of difficulty. Lasers everywhere!

Sorry about all the colors by the way, I felt like putting a lot of it today. I usually don't highlight every instances, but I felt like doing so this time around lol. I see colors ;D

Hong Meiling + Condemned

I've decided to post a link to one of my Touhou videos, which shows the entire fight against Hong Meiling (Stage 3 in the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil) on the Hard difficulty. Meiling definitely has some great looking spell cards, especially when I think of Rainbow Sign "Rainbow Wind Chimes", which to this day remains one of my favorite spell cards in the games.

Now, I've never beaten the game on Hard, I had reached the fourth stage I think, where I died, and always have died there. Maybe one day I'll be good enough to 1CC through the harder difficulties, but I guess I'll stick to the lower ones a bit longer ;p

This time there's no video on GameSpot itself, I don't feel like updating it here, and I'd rather post a link to my vid on YouTube in what we can consider "HD", and anyway it's prettier than the quality I can get here, unless GS does HD vids too for users and I haven't found how yet. Now worries though, the link is supposed to open in a new window, so it won't mess up your current page :]

EoSD - Hong Meiling (Hard difficulty)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STHBo56hXCw&fmt=22

Oh and I recently beat Condemned: Criminal Origins on X360, definitely was a strange experience.. The game itself wasn't bad, though I must say it really is better early on in the story. As you progress further, it seems like the story itself is escaping the game or something, or maybe it's the game getting repetitive, can't quite put my finger on what makes it so the game was better early on in the game. It still warrants me buying Condemned 2 eventually, especially that the price has gone down majorly since it is starting to be an old game. So far I've gotten all of the Achievements except one, which is to find/use every melee weapons in the game. I've printed myself a beautiful list of all the weapons and as I replay chapters, I mark off the ones I use. Shouldn't be too long before I get the Achievement for a GamerScore of 970 (yep.. Condemened doesn't have 1000 points, it only has 970 in total), as I only have, according to my list, 2 weapons left to use. So if everything goes well, I should get it in no time and add another completed game to my list in terms of Achievements :]

There will be only chaos..

God of War III Ultimate Edition status: Pre-ordered!

YES! It will be in my hands, and in the end, there will be only chaos.

Man, now I can't wait.. to think that I have till March 2010 to wait is killing me. The worst is that GameStop didn't even received any of the demo vouchers, so I couldn't even get one ;/

Well, at least, at the same time, I pre-ordered the God of War Collection, so in the meantime of waiting till March 2010 extremely impatiently, I'll be able to collect Platinum in both God of War and God of War II, all while continuing my playthroughs Uncharted Drake's Fortune and Among Thieves on the Crushing difficulty. That put together should fill the huge gap.. Oh yeah, reminds me that I need to pre-order Bioshock 2 as well.. But I'm waiting to see if they announce a collector's edition or not before :]

God of War, Ubuntu 9.10, New Games.

A 3 in 1 blog! But it is still ought to be short, as I don't feel like boring all of you while testing my now durable wireless connectivity on Ubuntu 9.10 / Karmic Koala. Ah *beep* that, it'll be as long as it takes ;p

To begin with, I'll go for what I am the most excited about: God of War III Ultimate Edition! Yes! Not a special, limited, bonus, extreme or whatever edition, but the ULTIMATE Edition. How sweet is that? You know what that is? It's my signal for pre-ordering the thing, the monster. All I've been waiting for to place my pre-order was for the supposedly "Collector's Edition", and well now I've got it! For those of you who might wonder "But.. what comes with an ULTIMATE Edition? Some kind of real life-sze Chaos Blades, sharp enough to truly kill people and kill my own self when it comes back to my hands?" well no. That'd be sweet though, and there was once before a perfect replica of these blades done, but they were expensive as all hell. Anyway here's what the Ultimate Edition has:

Exclusive Collectibles
• High-End Sculpted Replica of Pandora's Box
• Limited-Edition God of War Art Book featuring exclusive art, content and interviews

Exclusive Digital Content (Available via PlayStation Network voucher codes on day of launch)
• God of War Combat Arena containing an exclusive environment and seven challenges
• Premium Kratos Skin – Dominus
• God of War: Unearthing the Legend Franchise Documentary – a full-length movie documentary depicting the history of the God of War franchise
• God of War Trilogy Soundtrack – God of War, II, and III scores from the game (mp3 digital download).
• God of War: Blood and Metal EP – a heavy metal homage featuring original music inspired by God of War (mp3 digital download).

Can't say that isn't sweet. Probably one of the best Collector's Edition I've seen in a long time, apart from the Modern Warfare 2 thing which comes with night goggles. I'll definitely go pre-order that mythological box of godly powers this weekend if I can.

Now, Wednesday I installed the newly released Ubuntu 9.10 (AKA Karmic Koala.. yeah, they've been doing this for a long time.. 9.04 was Jaunty Jackalope, 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, 8.04 Hardy Heron and so on) and well, I'm still configuring it actually. Linux distros take a while to configure to your preferences, but I find it is worth my time as I end up with a stable, reliable Operating System. Now though, hence my first sentence of the blog, I encountered an issue which I've encountered in every single release apart from 9.04: Getting the wireless network to work. For Jaunty, it worked right out of the box.. almost, but with Karmic I'm having a lot more trouble than any of the previous releases I've had. Plus, I opted for a 64-bit Ubuntu this time around, which is a first and which also requires different drivers, and thus the good ol' tricks I knew don't work anymore.. So after 3 days of messing around with it, I can now connect wirelessly, though the driver stops working every 20 to 30 minutes. So I went in my router, and for absolutely no reason, decided to change that option I saw, whatever it was used for and whatever it did (some kind of encryption for my security.. or whatever) and well.. I've been connected wirelessly for about 1 hour without anything messing up. Pretty good, uh? Yep, random changements for the win! Now let's hope it continues like this.. I don't know if my Windows will connect anymore though, I honestly haven't checked. Now that I think about it.. I think I'll do just this before going to bed.

**UPDATE***
Turns out Windows does not support the type of encryption I put for my security. Anyway it didn't fix my problem on Karmic, as I always leave my computer turned on during the night (I sleep with music playing) and it disconnected and created a crash report when I woke up. BUT, I fetched a bit further and found out, with the help of the community, that Karmic comes with both rt2800usb and rt2870sta (that's the one I need) support, only problem is the system uses rt2800usb by default and by trying to use both, it creates a loss of connectivity and messes up the wireless. To make sure I had a clean install for trying the solution I found, I reinstalled 9.10 over again, just in case I had deleted some drivers from trying out other stuff (which I honestly think I did since it wouldn't appear when typing "lsmod" in a terminal). So I went and put rt2800usb on a blacklist (command: sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf -- once in the document, I simply had to add a new line "blacklist rt2800usb") and restarted my computer. Now it boots and uses rt2870sta as it's main driver for wireless connectivity and works wonderfully with my Linksys wireless USB adapter. Haven't had any problems with it after this.. so far lol.

Anyway, as a last note, I've bought the game Trine and .detuned for those who did not have the time to see it in my "Currently Playing" list. Finished both of 'em, 100% in .detuned along with a nice Platinum Trophy in Trine. Trine was pretty good, it's a nice side-scroller/platformer, with a touch of medieval, in which you play as a Thief, Wizard and Knight. You can change character on the go, whenever you feel like it and they each have their abilities, own life bar and own mana bar. The Thief has a grapple to swing from wooden ceilings and such and arrows will be her weapon. The Wizard can create objects (boxes, planks and triangles), which is also used as his weapon to crush enemies, since he can also move the objects around. The Knight is.. well it's a knight, shield and sword, you get the idea. I hardly ever used any character other than the Thief.. seriously, once you get the grapple thing down, the others could die it doesn't matter. The Thief is the best for sure, and my personal favorite. As for .detuned, it basicaly is an interactive music player, nothing more, nothing less. It's very strange too, but it's the type of interactive application that you won't keep for very long.

Well that's pretty much it. No videos for today, too, but I have more on the way which reminds me, since Akhorahill told me how he liked the patterns, I've made a video of one of my favorite boss fights in Touhou due to one specific spell card attack. I'll be sure to upload for my next blog in a near (or not so near) future.

Windows 7 and Some More Touhou vids

Alright, so I wanted to talk a bit about Windows 7 as I've gotten my hands on the Home Premium edition on the 23rd, but at the same time I also wanted to make a blog with some more Touhou videos, so I'll make both together ;p

As far as Windows 7 goes, I must say it's a big improvement over Vista, but no wonder.. my dog craps better stuff than Vista. Even if Windows 7 didn't work well, ate more ressources than Vista, crashed every 5 minutes, it would still be better than Vista. Anyway, as you might have heard it, it does use a lot less ressources, which is probably the biggest improvement I've seen. My computer hardly even makes a sound when running it, it feels as if it was turned off, yet it isn't. It does fail at some places though, such as requiring 16GB for install of the 32x (or x86, 32-bits) version, while it requires 20GB for 64x (64-bits). Now, that's some huge space for just a regular operating system, but I guess it's to make everything run smoothly, kind of the same way that running a game from a disc will never be as smooth as running it from the hard drive. For people with limited space (does anyone have limited space nowadays?), it's kinda big though. But yeah, I won't start complaining on what annoys me in it, because although I highly prefer it to Vista, there are still too many things that annoy me, which are, for the most, all visual stuff that can be changed to something.. in which the changes are even more annoying than the default configuration anyway, such as the taskbar behavior for software windows opened.

In the end, Windows 7 is not worth it's price, but getting rid of Vista sure was lol.

So I installed Windows 7 Home Premium 64x over my 32x Vista, and I enjoy it so far. I was curious about 64x, but hey, Touhou still runs on it, so I can make videos nonetheless, that's all I needed. Which makes me think.. Windows Movie Maker, which was a nice tool for simple video editing, removed something like 80% of it's features, visual effects and what not, making it not so good as before for simple editing.. It's not simple editing anymore, it's ultra-minimal editing, so I cannot add that nice old film effect on text boxes like I did on the Touhou vids I'm going to post for my newest vids. I'll have to check online to see if they didn't make these in some kind of downloadable visual effects and put a price on them, that would sound like them.

By the way, as a side thought like this, when I went and got Win7, some guy actually bought a full version of Microsoft Office, which is priced at $500, WHAT THE HELL!? Get Open Office Suite.

Here's my Touhou videos, which are from the 8th one "Imperishable Night". These are the Last Words spell cards, which are unlockable spell cards attack, and major ones at that. I've only unlocked 5 of them so far and could only complete 3. I'll post a link to YouTube for each video since they are in HD quality, but GameSpot doesn't allow for HD updating and does not allow for embbed YouTube videos in Blogs, so I suggest you go to the links instead, and while at it, rate them ;p

Which reminds me, akhorahill, I left a reply to your comment in my last blog.

YouTube link: Imperishable Night - Last Word - Blind Nightbird

[video=KyQ1kWf75bIEvDPb]

YouTube link: Imperishable Night - Last Word - Emperor of the East

[video=JiBgxjar5bIEvDPY]

YouTube link: Imperishable Night - Last Word - Lunatic Red Eyes

[video=JSYxxjT55bIEvDPZ]

I'll do more for sure, simply because I love making Touhou videos. In fact, I already have one more on my YouTube, which is from Shoot the Bullet.

My attempt on Flandre Scarlet

So it's been a while since I posted any video, which is what I will do in this blog. The video in question comes in 2 parts since it was too big (about 50MB over the limit) to be uploaded in a single video. The video is of me trying to beat Flandre Scarlet: the Extra stage boss in The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, which is the 6th Touhou Project game.

Before jumping right away to the videos though, I'll just make a small breakdown of what the game is in terms of HUD, if you want. You can always skip that part if you don't feel like knowing it, but I thought I'd do it since I expect Roll to be the only one who does knows how the game works, but I could always be surprised :] Let's not take the chance though.

Look at this small picture I made with the 4 primary points to be aware of when playing Touhou, each of the 4 points are explained below the picture:

EoSD HUD

-1: The yellow bar (which can be white or red) indicates the health of the boss. The number beside that bar indicates the number of remaining health bars the boss has as well (usually it's around 3-4, but in Flandre's case it is 10). The text that is right below the health bar are called Spell Cards. You see, the bosses have two different attacks: Regular attacks and Spell Cards. Only the Spell Cards have specific names displayed on screen. What's the difference, though? If you can make it through a Spell Card without dying or bombing, you capture that card and you earn extra points, as well as being able to say you captured it (each game has over 100 Spell Cards). Of course, due to this, the Spell Cards are usually much more brutal than regular ones.

-2: This simply indicates the number of lives (red star) and the number of bombs (green star) at your disposal. In a normal game, you also have up to 3 continues, but not in the Extra stage.

-3: The Power bar will increase your attack range in width and it's power, of course. You increase it by collecting the red tokens marked with a P on them when defeating enemies. The "Graze" number is a small tactic where you graze, or fly near bullets and pellets. It doesn't serve much purpose other than increase your score and make a small noise when grazing, definitely something to be aware of when going for the high scores. The last line are blue tokens which increase your score.

-4: That's me, or you if you play. The white dot I made on the back of Reimu (my character) is her hitbox: If a bullet or a pellet hits me there, I die. In later games this specific hitbox is visible, but in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil it is not, so you have to be aware of what your hitbox dimension is. Bullets and pellets will have varying hitbox sizes (you'll see that sometimes I might appear to fly right through one without taking a hit), you need to learn them on the go.

That's all you need to know about the game to know how to play it properly. When you see the two red circles around me go in front of my character, it's because I use some focus, which allows me to make smaller movements and concentrate the attack (mostly in later games) for a more powerful hit.

Oh and be gentle, it's only the third time I even reach Flandre and I didn't beat her, she's got one hell of a reputation too. Considering that I didn't know any of her attacks further than Cranberry Trap (it's her first Spell Card and second attack), I see this as a really good run for a third time only. Since I didn't know her patterns it was pretty hard even making it this far, but I'll learn them eventually, and at that time I'll definitely capture this. I did look kinda confused at one point during the fight against her, and I've gotten plenty of stupid deaths and bombing that could of easily been avoided, but it's part of learning the stage. Enjoy ;p

Part 1:
[video=IHFilmat5bIEuTfc]

Part 2:
[video=JnVnwjL45bIEuTfd]

mm.. Some more games, as usual ;p

So over the short amount of time since I am back, I already got some new games for absolutly no reason other than being bored. Man I really need to stop buying games out of the blue, cause that's when I end up with too many games started and none finished.

Anyway, I've bought Burnout Paradise (PS3), Lemmings (PS3) and NHL 10 (X360). Yes, a sports game. I know this isn't in my regular habits, but I miss the times where me and my best friend would drink beer, get drunk and play football/hockey video games, so I called him up and asked if he felt like starting such a game again and sure enough, he wanted to. So I bought NHL 10 on X360 because he can then log into his own profile, since on PS3 you can't locally be logged onto two different profiles. How nice of me for thinking about him :]

To top it off, this morning I ordered Immaterial and Missing Power along with Imperishable Night, which are two games in the Touhou Project series, respectively numbers 7.5 and 8. I need to keep building up my collection for this series, as it quickly became part of my favorite series ever since I first heard of them. They should ship next week, and when they do it usually takes 3 days to get here from Japan. Now someone needs to explain this to me though.. Why is it when I order stuff from Japan, it gets here within 1 week, whatever it is I order, but if I order from the United States or even from my own country, Canada, it takes over 1 week up to 1 month before reaching me.. what the hell? Think about it. It also makes me think, why do GameSpot lists all of the official Touhou Project games, even the ones from way back on PC-98 that aren't even sold anymore, but they do not list The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (6) and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (10.5), which are both originally for Windows XP? I would of liked to add it to my collection, but guess it won't be possible :/

By the way, if anyone feels like helping me out on Burnout's online Trophies, let me know ;p Things haven't changed, I'm still not a big fan of online multiplayer.

Haven't been on here in ages

After the lack of activity I found on here, I just dropped out of GS once again even though I was starting to come back more often.

So what's up? What have you people been up to for all this time? Anything new to share?

Throughout this I've aquired several more games (for PS3, X360, PC and even a PS1 game!). I've been spending my time working like a crazy person (yesterday was my first day off in the last 3 weeks) and playing video games here and there, mostly Touhou Project games, finishing Bioshock for the Platinum, went through Shadow Complex (they stole Nathan Drake's personality!) and currently still playing Touhou Project games (mostly the 6th one: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil) and Megaman Legends 2. Guess it's worth mentioning that I'm also playing Condemned: Criminal Origins and F.E.A.R. on X360 (I just really can't get into FPS PC gaming).

Talking of Touhou, someone really needs to explain me why a Japanese WINDOWS game is 100 times easier to install on Linux than it is to install it on Windows itself. And that's Vista by the way, because on XP isn't near as complicated as on Vista. Microsoft going backwards, perhaps? They make future OS more complicated while from a logical point of view it should be easier of access. Anyway, that's pretty much it.

Hope all of you are doing fine! It's Saturday morning right now, and guess where I'm going? To work! Hurray x.x I'll check back tonight or tomorrow morning before leaving to work again ;p