Hello everybody. Haven't posted a blog in a while. Mainly because it's the FREAKING HOLIDAYS. Although, not for the reason why most would think.

I'm currently in the most pressured times of my school career thus far. Since school ended last week Friday, I've been pressed for time. As of December 18th, those in Year 11 of our high school (10th grade for America) have been let out on 'break'. 'Break', as in 'studying our asses off for our MOCK Exams and preparing for our GCSEs'. So basically, I've become a drone, programmed to prepare for what will ultimately determine what I can and can't achieve as I move on for the IB programme.

But do not fret, fellow GameSpotters, I am still sane, and have sure still played games here and there while I gave myself a break. I've actually been spending my gaming time playing Forza Motorsport 3 and Mass Effect. Both incredibly addictive games. I'm more so playing Mass Effect to actually give it a second chance though. It and I got off the wrong foot when I first played it last year. I'll probably get around to reviewing them if I really feel the urge.

Also in family related news, my older sister has abandoned me with an ass of an older brother (although he did get me headphones...so points for him) to go live it up in Canada with her boyfriend. Not only that, but she's also staying with my best friend. NEITHER of them had the decency to tell me until they left. I had to find out myself. I was not impressed. Christmas was not the same without her. ****ing ****.

But enough of my self indulgence. MERRY FREAKING (belated) CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU. :D

Feel free to tell me whatever you may have received/given this holiday season.

Yeah, I dunno why the title is so random.

Anyway, I've been craving some new music lately, since I haven't heard anything new from my proven artists.

If you're actually bored enough to read my blogs, please, leave any suggestions of artists that you think I may like.

**NOTE: Not a fan of screamo. :?

I have a list of some artists that I already know in a previous blog, found here:http://www.gamespot.com/users/MadVybz/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25735857

So try to suggest something that isn't in that list! :D

Bad.

Very. Very. Bad.

If any of you brave souls wish to venture into that laughably terrible chasm, download the demo via XBL/PSN. Actually no, don't. I couldn't bear having the burden of your suffering on my shoulders.

I'm honestly at a loss for wordsat this point.

Well, for Modern Warfare 2, it takes 4. (5 if you include Captain Price). I just played through the campaign of MW2 tonight, and I must say that I had my mind blown away. Never before have I experienced such a thrill while gaming. Awesome action, awesome control,but a rather weak storyline (that I'll gladly overlook in this case. It's a shooter. :P). MW2 is a perfect example of why certain things work better in interactive mediums as opposed to movies.

But, as I was playing through MW2, it became clear that IW wanted to bring that 'shock and awe' feeling back from MW1, where your friendly neighbourhood Marine gets burned to a crisp by the fallout of a nuclear explosion. By the first time in MW2 it still had that thrill, but then it just went downhill from there. After experiencing the first death, going through 2 more just feels rather bland if you can understand what I mean. Nearing the end (I managed to avoid spoilers for this whole time. Surprised? :D) I was actually expecting Soap to die. I know that it's war and people are dying left and right, but who really thought that this would be a good idea? Imagine sitting through a Batman movie only to have Batman killed 20 minutes into it, replaced by some no-name, and repeat that process 2 more times. You'd be pretty annoyed.

I'm not really gonna review MW2, because we all know that I don't have to. I just wanted to give my thoughts on that little part in particular. (Oh yeah, call me evil; There were no survivors during the airport scene. :twisted: )

You bastard! How DARE you make a song for TWILIGHT? A movie filled with PANSY, FAKE VAMPIRES! Remember back when vampires weren't emo, gay or both? I sure do. I mean seriously Lupe, I thought you were above this. I love you and your music, but I'm honestly disappointed. I mean, it's freakin' TWILIGHT. Vampires are no longer cool, and it's all because of that GARBAGE. I've been told time and time again that the novels weren't even focused on the vampires but the love story! If that's the case, why DISGRACE vampires and have them forever labelled and humiliated? You could replace them with PYGMY MARMOSETS and still get the point across. CURSE YOU TWILIGHT. AND YOUR MOTHER.

I'm honestly calling a meeting for Richter, Simon and Trevor. They have a very important job to do.

(This is partly serious, partly humor. Any females that may enjoy Twilight, please don't find out where I live and eat me. :?)

I know one of you is probably sick of this topic, (Yes, I'm looking at YOU MissMorphine! :P) but this one is gonna be short and sweet.

Enjoy the resurrection of the Jungle Stage Theme (mixed with the Base theme as well) from Contra on the NES, performed by Chris Kline, otherwise known as 'Vertexguy' on YouTube and his personal website. It's finally been taken on in the perfect form of badassness and metallic wonder (That couldn't have been said any nerdier now, could it? :lol: ). If you're a fan of music, you'd want to listen. It's epic. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5JlGQ5orL8

With all of the amazing/story driven/beautiful/sandbox/B movie/casual games in today's market, it was actually refreshing to start playing the games that are at least 10+ years old. As it's probably been said a gazillion times before; today's games are made to be beaten. Yesterday's games were made for challenge.

As mentioned in one of my previous blogs, I recently acquired a top loader NES with 25 games (added some more now, see my games list if you're interested :P) and it was actually a great experience for me to just pick up and play a game instead of having to watch lengthy cutscenes, go through tutorials and the whole 9 yards. This is something that most may find weird from a guy my age, since I'm in the age group where gore and breasts are the 'pinnacle of awesome'.

I've actually spent most of my time playing the Megaman games. After neglecting them for oh-so-many years, picking up the old NES Megaman and Megaman X games have been a real blast. Testing your reflexes and wits and what-not. Oh yeah, I spent a good deal playing Contra as well. I actually managed to get to level 5 and a get a high score of 70,000 or so without using the infamous Konami code.

Oh man, can't forget the cl@$$ic musical scores that 8-bit monster created as well. Vampire Killer (Castlevania), Bloody Tears (Castlevania II: Simon's Quest [Although I don't own it. :(]), The Jungle Stage (Contra), Dr. Wily's Theme (Megaman 2), along with many other nameless tracks that are just catchy and unforgettable.

Not only does retro gaming bring back that charm games used to have where times were simple, it also makes you use a completely different mentality from today's games. They managed to actually make me think.Something I haven't done while playing games (besides fighters) for a looooooong time.

Does this make me a retro gamer? I guess you could say that. Does this mean that retro will live on in my heart and everything else should die? Hell no. :P

No, of course it isn't! You'd have to be on drugs to think that I was being serious! :P

Anyway, I recently went on a fieldwork trip for my GCSE Geography coursework. It also involved me taking pictures. And, just in case if any of you were wondering what a beach in Bermuda looks like, (although you probably weren't. :lol: ) take a look:

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Yeah, not the best weather during the fieldwork, but it still beats anything I've seen in the states. :P

This is one of the MANY pictures I had to take so that I could study headlands and bays, wave energy and wave refraction, processes of erosion, blah blah blah, blah blah...Stuff you guys could care less about.

What really sucked about this is that I had to stay in a ridiculously grotty (Bermudian term for gross :P) biological research station. They had rooms for the 30 of us kids that went, but most or if not ALL of them were infested with bugs and smelled worse than say...Sour ass? Yeah, that's it. Not to mention that we started work at like 8:45 in the morning and didn't get let off until 9:30 or 10:00 at night. During the day we'd spend our time hiking all over the damn place until limbs fell off. And after we'd collect all the data, we had to go back the station and create graphs, data tables, create hypotheses, make write-ups, etc. And we did this process over the course of two days for two separate beaches, to ultimately compare attributes and come to conclusions of why they differ. Too much hard work for such a little boy. :x

So yeah, overall, the trip sucked. Hard. Oh yeah, the food sucked too. But that's just the story of my life. Doing s*** I don't wanna do. :lol:

'Sup ya'll. I was on Bermuda's bootleg eBay (eMoo...No kidding. :|) and I managed to find a particular person who was selling an NES, along with this list of games;

1. Batman
2. Batman Returns
3. Batman: Return of the Joker
4. Battletoads
5. Castlevania
6. Contra
7. Galaga
8. Godzilla: Monster of Monsters!
9. Megaman
10. Megaman 2
11. Megaman 3
12. Megaman 4
13. Megaman 5
14. Megaman 6
15. Metal Storm
16. Rad Racer
17. Rad Racer 2
18. Rambo
19. Rampage
20. Space Invaders
21. Street Fighter 2010
22. TMNT
23. TMNT 2: The Arcade Game
24. TMNT 3: The Manhattan Project
25. TMNT: Tournament Fighters

Yup. An NES along with 25 games, most of them being defined classics. And guess how much all of this cost me?

$20.

Yup. $20. Lucky me. :D

"Z0MG! G4M3 (X) 5H0ULD h4V3 B3EN DLC! St0P f00L1NG y0URS3LV3S 4ND d0N'T BUY 7H1S CR4P! IT'S NOT WORTH $60!!!!!1111one!!!!!"

SHUT. THE. ****. UP.

First it's Halo: ODST, then it's L4D2, then SSFIV, now it's MW2.

Do these idiots not know that DLC is merely adding stuff on like a game mode or a few new maps or something? With every game I just mentioned, they're far more than just adding 1 or 2 new things on. In the case of MW2, ODST and SSFIV, they're changing their core mechanics! That's not even possible for DLC to achieve.

Look, I can understand where you're coming from because this is the digital age, but do you have any idea how much space that would take up on your HDD? Plus the fact that it's possible for glitches to be more frequent if it's not a hard copy? (Look at the Xbox originals available on the marketplace, you'd see what I mean.)

It's honestly about time that these imbeciles just went off somewhere to get an education. Or at least STFU.

EDIT: Yay! I just hit my 1,000 forum post mark. :D