Hello everyone! Long time no see. (ummm cheezy) Statistically speaking there was not even a SINGLE blog post by me on Gamespot in the 2009 and to be exact, the last blog post was way back in December 18th 2008!

I've always been a huge procrastinator, but I guess I reached the ultimate level last year. I did plan to post many times but ended up with none. I would daily check blog updates from fellow GS'ers and comment... but that too stopped last year. The only thing that I kept doing was the first thing I did when I joined GS, post in the forums. I daily check my post history and keep talking to pals from various unions. However, there are two groups of friends at GS, people who you talk with in the forums and others with whom you communicate via blog comments, I've missed you all, my blog friends. Now, its time to change that.

The main point to note now is that, its the END of the FIRST DECADE of the... NEW MILLENNIUM. Being someone who has only lived for two whole decades, this last one sure has been quite a ride. I got my computer in '98, internet connection in '99 and been at Gamespot ever since.

Hundreds of movies were seen, songs were heard, games were played and of course, days were lived. The biggest way how this past decade was different was that I now basically had two lives. One online and the other, offline. I am pretty sure everyone here understands what it exactly means. Once you go online, the uncontrolled flow of information really gets your brain on overdrive.

I've already been writing about all games that I played, from the Atari 2600 till the present. So I wont be going down that road (will definitely finish the series soon!) There are hundreds of games I've played this decade and the same goes for games from this decade (played lot of oldies too :P) Me being the sentimental person I am, find it almost impossible to choose a "Top - whatever" because, every game I played has this strange attachment.

Anyhoo, I had the privilege of being part of the panel that decided the Game of the Decade at bossfight.in. I had a look at my sorted collection, listed out all good games, trimmed down the list to 100 and then added some cIassics which were worth mentioning and then sorted the list according to rankings. Its not something I generally do, but somehow, with a late night high, I was able to do it, the draft that I made is too... not for public eyes :P But do check out the top 50 that is being listed by combining the input from the whole Panel at that website!

Lets recollect 2009!

Two really big things happened to me last year, gaming wise. Indian Gamespot buddies, From IGG Union, who have known each other for more than 4 years on Gamespot, met IRL at the centre of India, Nagpur. We all are from different states, and the host of the 3 day bash, the IGGBASH, was gagan21.

IGGBash Begins!
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I arrived from Hyderabad, Neeraj from Chennai, Shiben from Bengaluru, Amit from Jabalpur and Gagan's cousin from Delhi, all(but Jabalpur :P) capitals of different states of India and India itself. We gathered at Nagpur, which is the geographical center of India, also, home town of Gagan himself! It was felt like the premise of a really cool movie :P It was three whole days of crazy gaming fun. Everybody brought their controllers with them, Gagan had all the consoles and games anyone could ever ask for.

My stuff that I took to IGGBash

We played games non-stop till early morning, we would just sleep and wakeup and start playing again like crazy people, haha. Gagan surely knows how to throw a party. I don't think the whole experience would have been as awesome as it was if it weren't for him.

We played ODST on Co-op, 8 player all-indian team games on Halo3, Co-Op horde mode on Gears2, 4 Player Splitscreen Motorstorm Pacific Rift, 4P FIFA, 4P LittleBigPlanet, WarioWare Smooth Movies, Mario Kart Wii, ad-hoc Tekken 5 on PSP, co-op Contra 4 on DS. You name it, we played it. We even played Batman AA on Neeraj's Killer laptop. We did side by side comparisons of PS3 and PC versions of B:AA,starting the game at the same time on both, PC Won! haha :P

Check out the whole album to get a feel of the joy. Honestly, this is going to be one of those things that I'm going to tell stories about, to my grandchildren :P There we were, people who grew up playing games all alone and in a place where games were not all that universally acknowledged.. now all in our 20s, enjoying ,playing games together and discussing all this nonsense that anyone from outside would just run away after hearing. Even when we went out to eat we would be talking on various topics, all game related. Its not like clan meeting and discussing strategies, Things about the gaming industry in general and what things are happening in India etc etc. Simply put, it was one of the best experiences ever. Thanks for being there guys!

The Participants of IGGBash

NASSCOM Indian Game Developers conference.
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I got to know that there is thing GDC type thing happening right in my city, and without a second thought, I went and got registered for it. Being a student has its perks, The fee was just Rs.500/- for me, instead of Rs.1500.

It was a two day event, but first day was strictly corporate stuff. I was there for the second day. The opening keynote was given by Ernest Adams. He is... awesome, the presentation he gave, showed all general flaws in game development and how people should think while making games. 20+ years of industry experience is no Joke!

There were many other talks, talks on game music, graphics, MMOs, etc. I attended all I could and of course the most important one of the day was the one on being DIFFERENT by Anand Ramachandran. He is the one who writes for Bossfight.in, but many indians might know him from Son of Bosey, one of India's funniest blogs. You could say... he is like, the Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of India :P The talk was really thought provoking.

After the day's events ended, me, him and two of the organisers from NASSCOM had long discussions, all about video games and other random philosophical stuff, that, much like IGGBASH, never get to discuss IRL. The discussions and everything went on till very late in the night. We all signed off, each gaining a new friend.

Lists and Time wasted so far.

The Lowdown | Games | Movies | Anime

Similar to how everything happened outside, in real life, most of my talks with GS friends happened outside too. I talk to many friends via portals like steam, or facebook or e-mails or even Phone.. its like the relation has gone... TO THE NEXT STEP, haha :P Its nice to see that a friendship that sprouted from GS has translated so well into real life.

I might not have been coming to GS too much, but will never forget what all it has done for me.

Well now... lets get to the Stats and resolutions!

In 2008, I saw about 300+ episodes of anime, and that was really something. I only saw around 20-something movies that year. Quite disappointed by that fact, I made it my "New Years Resolution" last year to see more movies.

So... how did 2009 turn out to be? Well, I was not keeping track of the number until yesterday when I sat and compiled the whole list (which was made easy thanks to twitter). I saw... *drumroll* 73 AKA Seventy Three movies last year! haha. I didn't expect it to be that high :P Whenever I got any free time, I just sat and watched a movie, I have this huge stack of shelved movies. Good thing I did I guess.

But, then came the end of 2009 Games list. EVERYDAY, I sit and read articles upon articles about games, but somehow, whenever its time to play games I felt "The time available is not enough for a game" (i.e. procrastination) I played (through its entirety) only 15 games last year. I did play 20+ hours of many games and didn't complete them, FF XII to name one. This only showed one thing. I'm not spending time with games! I always find myself reading stuff and complaining that I'm not playing anything.

*The New Year's Resolution

So this New Year's resolution is to Play games, especially because this will be my last year in my super happy fun home, and my Home Theatre. If everything goes according to plan, should be leaving for my higher studies in august. So, this is the best time to enjoy games to the fullest. Console games. Coz after that, I guess its just steam and me HP tablet. Bought too many games from Steam deals... they be crazy I tellsya!

Oh yeah, the only animé show I saw last year was GTO, although, its was VERY much worth it. One of the best experiences ever. I got its manga and have to read it sometime. Also, have to watch more animé this year too, I've stalled them at 100 (shows watched). The other thing I did was, read the whole School Rumble manga from start to finish. It was quite an adventure. Then ending... it was... oh well, anyway, its over. All I can say is, the last stretch, I read from 7 PM to 7AM, that's how awesome it was.

Definitely though, when I look back. 2009 has been a year full of unforgettable moments.

Let hope I manage to keep the tempo and start writing stuff and talking to you guys more frequently. The thing is that... real life is no cake walk. I'm in my final year of engineering and time has to be dedicated to it. Cant just expect EVERYTHING to happen as planned. I still have played ONLY TWO games from my year old package smackage blog post!

If anything, I will always be active on twitter because I'm always connected in some way or the other. So keep track that way (at your own risk :P ) if you want to see my gaming and life updates as and when they happen.

Today was another pickup mission! Another one of the students doing their MS in SIUE (where my bro studies) had come to Hyderabad just the other day, and guess what? My brother sent things via her! Yeah, that's pretty common anyways, people send things for their parents/relatives back in India via friends leaving to India! So what were those things? Where was the pickup point? Read on!

Oh yeah, that's "Reeft Punk" btw.. my avatar when I ride on the bike :P The helmet with no Visor gives the cool, winged helmet feel to it, and the shades block the dust completely (there is a LOT of dust in HYD, eyes get destroyed). Oh and always have my iPod on whenever riding :D

*The Destination!

The destination was also quite far away this time! (it's like a mandatory condition that the friend's house should be really far away) Luckily it was not as far away as the previous one, and this time it was on the opposite side of the city. The complete path is on the Highway!! That's the best part of it, finally got a chance to ride on the Highway (for a long distance) Enjoyed the ride a lot I must say.. but don't get too joyful! Things can get really dangerous. Good thing it was not very deep into the highway, else ultra super fast trucks would have started zooming by.

The house I had to go to was in Chanda Nagar and there were many other nagars inside ChandaNagar, it was a confusing mess! I was going on a straight path and then it split into three. Let's just say that I roamed 3Kms ("gullies" and all), for 15 minutes of every path. AND the last one was the right place :| Ofcourse, it always has to be the last place! (stupid Murphy and his law)

*The Package!

So I finally reached the house, (ofcourse with a lot of assist over the phone from Pratibha didi :P ) and there I was greeted to THIS chunk of awesomeness! Just look at towering package! I put everything into my bag, and also gave the things that I prepared for my brother.. made a complete DVD (along with labels and Covers) Took me around 3 months to edit the 3hr + Video (along with handpicked BGM etc :D ) And another DVD with all the pictures taken when he was not here. I also gave the 1 GB DDr ram that I had lying around here, with no use at all.

Then Sat there for a while talked a bit with Pratibha didi, got to know a few things about how they all saw my bro :P After talking for about an hour or so (and after eating 2 Ferrero Rochers! ) I started the return journey. It's getting dark very soon now a days, was pretty dark by 6PM itself! Reached home in under an hour and was ready to...

*Layeth the SmakethDown!

I guess I already told you all about how my brother is a deal finder and always tries to get things for... not the standard price :P Lemme write down the things with their price and how he got them for that much! Ok, without further ado, here are the things!

As you can see.. There are 4 PS3 games

· LittleBigPlanet - $39 (Amazon Coupons)

· Resistance 2 Collector's Edition - $59 (Offer in Amazon)

· Heavenly Sword - $19 (Amazon again :P )

· UT III - $19 ( $21 with tax, Walmart )

And then there are two BD Movies too!

· Hulk Limited Edition - $16

· TDK 2-Disc Special Edition - $10

Both from Columbia house, don't ask me HOW though :P

What? You thought that was all ? Now have a look here!

The first 3 games are from the buy 2 get 1 free GameStop offer that was up not too long ago. And remaining are form Amazon :D

· Pikmin 1 - $24.99

· Pikmin 2 - $39.99

· LoZ: TP - $44.99

· No More Heroes - $14.99

· Wario Land : Shake it - $29.95

· Mercury Meltdown : Revolutions - $9.95

Yeah! That's 5 Wii/GC games in there! Can't wait to start playing them all, hehe.. just need Luigi's Mansion, SMS, and Eternal Darkness now :P

Here is a panoramic shot of everything in one pic! (two pics stitched together)

Huh? It seems Mr.Ephelant seems to have found something.. what's that? AppleSeed : DuesEx Machina DVD and PURE for PC! (for JUST $5! )

So that's it for this pickup mission! Sure was exhausting! Came home, took pics and then posted the blogs, that's all what I did this day.. now off to sleep!

As a Special gift here is another nice shot of the whole of the whole package!

So, i've finally got some hands on time with Wii Music today, but I was not the first one to get their "hands on" it. I made my mom have the honour of being the first to play the game, with me and dad watching as she played :P

The game started with no menu's, it had the tutor appear, and teach the basic 4 ways of operating the instruments in the game. My mom did all the tutorials and then played her first song! The rhythm of "twinkle twinkle" is well known to my mom (she is the one who taught me that afterall :P ) She did pretty good in her first ever try at playing instruments using the wii mote (she used to play real instruments back in her days). How did it go? well here is a Video :D

[video=KiMxljb45bINszDf]

Youtube HQ Video HERE

After that..mom and dad, went on playing for hours and had real fun making music and seeing their music being played on the BG, as they played the different instruments. (your previous plays add to the whole arrangement, automatically) soon they had done a whole 2x3 person band music of DoReMe (another one my mom and dad know, thanks to "The Sound of Music" ) well, it was good but not... how do I say this... video worthy :P However the amount of happiness and joy my parents had , was more than worth it to give it a 100 popularity points :D

Later I sat and experimented with a few things, wanted to see if I could do some custom changes to songs I know. I actually wanted to play the SMB 1-1 song.. so to unlock it, went on playing, soon I unlocked 47 songs but SMB song was no where to be found :(

One thing Wii Music really helped me in was, knowing the names of all those songs that I liked but never knew the names of. You know, the songs that came in Tom and jerry cartoons and some other merry melodies or Silly symphonies.

Here is a video of me doing that song which comes in that Tom and Jerry episode, you know, the one where nibbler sings the Ferero Rocher song :P

[video=IiA2kDv45bINszDb]

Youtube HQ link HERE

and here is another video of me playing a song thats OUT of this WORLD, and I think I heard this in another Tom and jerry episode.. I used this instrument I like very much, whose name I never knew till I played the game, and also dont know now, only remember that it starts with a "D" hehe.

[video=d3w6lGCq5bINszDc]

Youtube HQ Link is be HERE is

You wont know the difference unless you've heard the original, tell me how it was :P I know I am no expert and it was just my first try, wanted to see how the whole thing goes. I like the second on more!

Cant wait to sit and record some videos of me playing with some beat boxer or maybe doo wopper, but, I want my SMB 1-1 theme! Played for 5h:47m today and it was awesome, unlocked 47 songs, SMB 1-1 not included, played only 4 songs till now though :P

P.S : Btw, you have to hand it to the guys who do the Wii game musics, I mean, everyone of those Menu Musics are so soothing and relaxing, they are some of the best musics I have heard in recent times, the one that comes when you save a video is just too good, they are many in other Wii branded games too, and ofcource SMG also has some good music.

All in all.. I love Nintendo's music :D

Today was Eid, (Happy Eid to all! :D) Hence a holiday. So I decided I make most of this time and went to my brother's friend's house where he sent things that he bought in US. And these are just not normal purchases, everything was a special Deal...

*Point A to B

The journey was 60KM long and as usual I travelled via my lovely bike. Was happy to see that the traffic was no where near to what you see 90% of times here (and trust me, you'd never want to drive with that horrible traffic ) So I reached there and look at what I picked up!

Oooh yeah! Thats a lotta BDs and DVDs :D lemme list em.

BDs

1. Iron Man Limited edition
2. Journey to the Center of the Earth
3. Kung fu Panda
4. Batman Begins

DVDs

1. Predator
2. Independance Day
3. The Day After Tomorrow

And theres a PSN card and also a Fischer Price Cartoon DVD, that DVD was free. will see it... justcoz :P

As for the BDs, My brother bought it in a Buy 1 get 1 free offer from columbia house so Iron Man is the one he bought and BB is the free one, and I discovered that KungFu Panda was accidentall listed for "free" and ordered that ASAP, hehe (got a mail saying it was cancelled and then a "sorry, take it" later :P )

And Journey to the Center of the earth, just now I and my parents watched, it was a great movie.. I mean the BD comes with 4 pairs of 3D glasses and Both 3D and 2D versions on the Same disc .. AND a "digital copy" on a dvd, which I guess is a avi version or something of the whole movie. It has a CD key for it and everything, I dont know why it was give, but oh well. thats awesome, its 3 movie versions in 1!

The 3D effects did infact feel 3D-ish, and luckily it was more and better than Superman Returns (yeah, I saw that in 3D... in IMAX, lol)

As for the DVDs. I and my bro have a plan on buying almost all those old movies that we watched and loved. And with our complete Home theater set-up disaster movies with the extra blasts and eveything are top priority :P Ofcourse, its not like he bought all for direct price, my brother being the deal guy he is, always bought em in such a way that theres profits o matter whats, hehe 8)

He IMed me the other day saying he bought Ace Ventura Double Pack! and he wont send it.. that !@#!# :P

*Point B to C

Since I cae oh so far to take those things, I made sure that I made most of the milage and visited nearby shopping areas, so I went to the computer heaven of Andhra pradesh (CTC ) and first visited the Book depot there, its one of the hugest book selling place here.

First thing I saw was a "Guiness Book 2008" book and I immediately remembered this Story in GS (mine is 10th comment) I asked the guy if he had other versions and he said "I dont know" So I went deep into the shop, searching for new MAD mag issues (nope, still no issues, since 2+ years) and looking at various Amar Chitra Katah Books.

and Lo Behold What do I see?

Oh yeah! I got that thing.. I just couldnt help myself, but I just love General knowledge...as I put it

"I am always on a trivial pursuit for trivia"

As much as I love stories, I mostly love books that are information based, than novels and stuffs, have a ultra huge collection of magazines and stuff (8+ years of 2+ mag subscriptions :P ). Once I took a look at the book I saw so many things that I would just eat away, so many things that you wouldnt necessarily find written in articles all around the place, so it was an instant buy!

Official Price 1300 got it for 1100 :D

As for the other thing its a DK multimedia (remember, I hate I love maths?) CD on Human body which I bought for my uncle who runs a big tutorial. His methods of teaching are very homely and unique. He already had an old version of the thing which he used to show to students and teach but the disc got corrupt so I bought this new version (also compatible with Xp! :P )

*Alternate Path

Now instead of going home (Point A) from this place... I took a detour and encountered a shop which... sells games! I just tried my luck and asked them.. "left 4 dead hai kya?" (Do you have l4d?) and BAM... he said yes and got it! Woot! I was waiting to get my hands on this thing since a long time and I finally have it. So yeah.. if you are an indian and waiting for the game, just go and get it.. its out!

Just saw the opening cinematic, sure did describe what kind of experience Valve was planning for gamers to have. Now... I wonder if my first playthrough itself should be on Co-op or SP...

and Yeah my Steam ID is Reetesh. add me if you want to play along sometime :)

*To Point A, and Feorgotting

What? You never heard of Feorgotting? Well.. it could be because.. I made it up :P The thing is that, when coming back, I was wondering if I "put the CD back in after checking it" at the book shop (DK CD) And then I was thinking if put my Card back into the wallet after paying the bill. (even though at one point I remembered doing it) Soon, I started feeling that I checked for it and then removed it and didnt put it back in :lol:

Such kinds of loops went on happening as I rode back to point A, actually, this happens a LOT to me, I keep forgetting such things, JUST so that I can worry about it..its like there are two brains inside me :P

I coined this phenomenon as "fear+forgetting = feorgotting" always forgetting and getting that "fear" inside you if things were done right or not.

perfect example "Did I lock the doors while leaving or not"

*Mission Complete

So yeah, I came back took these pics, emptied around 70GB of HDD space, reorganized a lot of files, installed L4D, saw journey to the center of the earth and then.. wrote this! Thats all for this entry, oh yeah! did I forget to tell you theres a Wii Music there too!?

I dont know about you, but the game sold itself to me the instant I saw that demo by .. no not ravi, but this guy, J.C.Rodrigo Well, to be honest, I bought the game even before I saw the video, I just love psuedo music making games or what ever you want to call it (Passive Reactive Rhythm game etc etc) and I know that my mom will also like it, so why not buy it, and hey it has SMB 1-1 Music in it!!

See you soon then, lets hope theres more coming.. I heard TDK BD has come out today :twisted:

Pragnya is the name of my college's "Tech Fest" The story of how this thing started itself is some 100 pages story, so lets not get to it :P At the end, it indeed "started off" and was its 3rd and final day. I am one of the 4 organizers of the "Lan Gaming" event for the fest. Its a 3 day event, being held all day long and that too in a lab of our college.

The games included in the Lan Gaming event are CounterStrike 1.6 (obviously :P ) , NFS MW, FIFA 08, Warcraft III (DotA) , and Quake III. The QIII in there, was there because of my request. I never see UT or QIII in any of the events of other college's, so I just put it there for players like me :) We planned to have Tournaments for CS and NFS, everything else was planned to be a regular "friendly" match which means that we basically set up all the systems in lan and the people visiting could play on Lan connected systems for cheap and have fun (generating income for the prizes)

Out of the 4, I and another person were like the main people handling the games and systems etc etc. I was there helping with all the hardware and networking things, being a college computer lab, we faced bazillions of problems, I was so happy that everyone of those problems we faced was easily fixable for me (not that the problems themselves were not too big :P ) All 4 of us spent the first 3 days of the week assembling, installing all games and stuffs on the systems. When the event actually started one of us was the registrations handler, the other was seeing all formalities and coordinating things, I was the NFS referee the other was the CS referee.

We organizers have "black t-shirts" and the simple volunteers who came in during the events were the "white shirts" once again showing that "Black is 1337 choice" :P So yeah, the white shirts were there to help us monitor the tournament matches, noting down timings etc etc. Really helpful bunch I must say, made new friends too!

On the first day I and another one of the organizers had to run up and down the college building for almost an hour to get the permissions letter signed by 4 different people out of which one was not available for 45 minutes. In The end however, we got signatures of one Associate professor, two Head of Departments and our principal to formally "get permission" for doing the thing and take responsibility for it.

I am trying to start "cut-short"-ing my blogs now, so that I can write things faster.. so lets just skip the majillion points of trivial details (in the inside, I don't think of them as trivial :P ) and skip to the main points!

One small point is that we allowed only the playing people inside the room, so there were 2 CS Clans and 4 NFS players in the room at any point and all others waiting outside in the waiting room, because all responsibility for the things in the lab was on us and we dont want nothing to be getting lost now, dont we?

*Satisfaction!

For the first time in our college's 10 year history a Lan Gaming tournament was conducted and I was very happy to be a part of it, and most of all, I was happy that I was a "big guy" in the whole thing, as I now had a part in making the thing as fair as possible. With no "college partiality", etc etc. I am happy to say that the whole thing went smoothly. Every match was under my observation and I didn't find anything objectionable being done, Its not like I had to go there and tell them to not do something wrong, everything was being done in a very fair manner. I was just making sure everything was going right or not by double checking everyone's stats. (self satisfaction)

*Sportsmanship.

I was actually thinking that I would come across a lot of un-sportsman people who would... you know do "un-sportsman" things and complain a lot at the end of the matches, but NO. They understood that we were on college systems, which are not built for total gaming, understood that there was lag and EVERYONE was under the same condition. Also they were very cool about going according to the rules that I set. They were not bothered by the delays and were patient enough to wait till everything was fixed! Its great to see people like that participating. One of the participants is in top 10 of the state, a very good national level player too. He was there helping us , after finishing his matches by setting up some systems and giving bits of info on how other colleges organized things.

*Collision Detection

The only thing that I found wrong in the whole event was that almost every participant in the NFS event went :O after hearing that there would be collision detection in the races. I've read the whole WCG rules and know that its "off" in their games. But I don't see any point in having a "LAN" game and turning collision detection off.

I was telling them "Why not just play on any non lan system without traffic or bots and we will note down your times" it's the same thing as not having collision detection. They were worried about the race start mainly, as NFS puts 4 players in a 2x2 order (hence back people hitting front people etc) but I told that "that's the way it rolls" you can't come all the way and say it's a LAN event and have a sissy "no collision detection" event. I told them its an "underground" event, so forget about world standards.

We had one volunteer observing each of the 4 simultaneous participants and made sure that no one did any intentional crashes.

*Fairness

The whole event was as fair as possible, Out of the qualified Semi-finalists we divided people accordingly, so that we don't see a final in the semis itself, and also such that the least tier people don't play with all the first tier people.

There was no HUGE a gap between people and no one had any complaints :) Due to some technical difficulties we had to make some changes and the competitors accepted without raising a fuss about it.

*The Moneh!

We've had over 100 Participants, with ~65 for NFS and 11 Clans for CS. The participation number was quite good! Not only was this our first Lan Gaming event, but due to some mistake the event was not even mentioned in our event's website or the poster. In other colleges its around 250 or something, so relatively we did pretty good! All registration money was in the hands of the person who handled the registration. I always worry when it comes to money matters. The main thing being the doubt if the person who is collecting is a honest person or not. In almost every event I've seen till now, there were people who kept eating some of the money. I was having my doubts if there would be one now too.

But all these days working with them and seeing how they behaved, I was assured that they are good people and not someone who would eat away the earnings of the event. Not only that, but also the organizers of all the other events and the main co-ordinators are cool people with no intention of cheating out any of the money into their own pockets.

Maybe its because this is the "Tech fest" and not the college's "cultural fest". Why does it matter? Because every event is something related to things like paper presentations, programming competitions Robotics etc. so that means that only geeks and nerds are the organizers :P Not those meat heads, who somehow just by seeing you can say that will do something like that.

*What to DO with the Monnies.

Once everything was collected and registrations were closed, all the money was given to the appropriate authorities. The college decided that they keep 30% of the earnings and we use the remaining for the prize money... we had to reduce the NFS and CS prize a bit because of this (we were giving 1st and 2nd prize ) but the participants were cool with that.

*NFS Rules

The NFS Finals was won by the person in blue sitting on the far left. It sure was a great match, I planned the finals' scores in such a way that any mistake can lead to a total turnover of points and make the one in lead, loose the game. We faced a lot of problems during the finals as one of the connected system was always closing automatically as soon as the match started. We tried several combinations of 4 computers and after a lot of trials somehow got everything working smoothly.

The first Circuit race was 20 minutes long and tested the stamina of everyone, next one was a curvaceous sprint testing the players control and handling, then the third was a traffic filled collision having drag race. Drag is something everyone has trouble finishing, and it felt awesome seeing them play like that, going under the truck and all :P

*End

The CS winners had to leave because they had another tournament, after trying a lot to try and get them the certificate and prize before hand, and not succeeding I gave them the prize money out my pocket and asked them to leave for their tournament (for which they paid a lot to register and were getting late ) I took their prize money for myself :P

The certificates could not be given to the winners as the tournament ended at 2 PM and certificates were written and locked by 1PM. They will however get it on Monday :)

*Other things!

Well, I first of all used one of my designs to make a poster for the Lan Gaming event. Made this in under 20 minutes, and it sure caught everyone's attention :D Other than that, took print outs of tables that I made to note down all the preliminary rounds' timings. Helped in framing questions for the "Tech Quiz" and some general help here and there too. All organizers got free lunch everyday too! The lunch was excellent in our canteen. And it felt great that we all organizers were being rewarded like that.

We spent 3 days installting various games in all the systems, and today when it ended, we spent around an hour deleting every game from every system in a synchronised and quick manner, the work was done leaving now trace of it ever happening, just so that people dont sit and play those games during normal lab sessions, hehe.

Well, I think I am missing some details but I guess this is more than enough, will keep making shorter posts if possible, hehe. All in all, the event was awesome and it had a great surprise in the end which I will save for later. It was the first time our tech fest was so huge (only the cultural fest was a big thing, till now) it did go pretty well, but will surely be better next time! There were many things wrong with the timing and promotion and (lack of) sponsorship for this event.

Any doubts or anything, feel free to ask :P

Heres the poster I made

Ever since I was introduced to the concept of blogging by GS(when it revamped everything way back when), I used to think of it as a online dairy with great archiving methods. I titled my journal "My gaming(life) journal" and since then planned on making this place where I would have a record of everything that I did since my Introduction to gaming till "the present time".

I started writing, I dont think at first many people read it, but later, as I went on writing, there came the soapbox feature and I got selected into it. since then I tried more to make things seem more streamlined , partitioned and always have accompanying images related to the contex, something to be atleast a bit close to something that would satisfy GS's expectations.

*Slow, Slow

But the thing is that I only made these posts like once in 3 months or something, basically because I wouldnt want to start spamming the soapbox reel, and its somewhat time consuming :P Then there is the thing that I wanted to first come to the present timeline in my journal and then start writing completely about games I am playing right now. hence stopping myself from writing anything other than those editorials (some really exceptional cases I posted other things)

Hence my primary type of interaction with all my friends in GS was mostly one way, with me going to each and every friends blog, checking them everyday and commenting there and having fun commuting with all of you here. I almost stopped commuting in forums too. All these years, most part of the day was spent talking and commuting in GS alone. Its like it was an integral part of my life.

Other than a few reserved forums I dont post much now a day... and recently I have been getting too busy and not watching the friends blogs too..

*Experiments and Result 

Lets just say I experimented with some ideas and adventured to the outside world, I met a lot of new people in these 6+months of outside world adventures and had fun.. but every instant reminded me of some other instance that I experienced in GS.

Then I started thinking that over 5.5 years I've been in GS I've shared a lot of memorable moments here and its high time I start "participating" in the whole community thing and "write stuff"

I mean things like Normal Day to Day gaming blogs, because.. well I guess most of you might be thinking that I dont even play games now a days :P

Much like many users here, Reetesh is also a multi-faceted phenomenon.

I may not be a super buyer like @gagan21, @lik or @Guuthulhu but I still buy and play games often.. and I've got a huge stockpile of old and incomplete games that I always play every now and then. Theres always a game that I am playing and trying to complete, so I will keep writing about my experiences here from now on instead of.. well.. bothering and showering mails at a certain someone ;)

Well, if you saw my Blog Header then you would have seen that I also love watching anime/reading manga just like @Sm2099 ,@o0kami, @bulletsword and @jeff537665 so theres some more things I can share with you all everynow and then.

Also will be writing something silly, but not as good as @31160618 I guess, also some anger venting ones like @u1 does and sometimes informative blogs like @chikahiro and @Bozanimal do. and Maybe some crazy "real life" things like @mufujifi does :P

Well, lets just hope I actually start venting my thoughts and not think of the consequences beforehand (often over estimated) and stop mid-way!

*Whats Holding me Back

The only thing that has been preventing me from doing so (other than the rule I put) is the fact that GS has very bad archiving mechanism for its blogs, its just "post post post", you cannot sort by tag you cannot even see a full small list of blogs you posted now in the "new"  version. I cannot see posts by date, I cannot oragnize them in any way. So this becomes very cumbersome.. I cannot even look at the first post I made right now. I wonder whats the case for you all with 100+ posts. GS is like a storage dump, but not something that allows for proper archiving like a "journal" does. If I start posting rapidly now, I wont be able to access my old posts well.. it gets too tiresome!

It also doesnt allow Youtube Video embeds, and many other things leading to double and unnecessary work . I just hope GS takes care about the Archiving and and other features soon.

I've somehow managed to fix the archiving problem using even longer methods, but it gets the work done :)

So yeah, thats what I've been thinking basically, just hope I can start writing short and quick updates every now and then at GS too. I mean, most of my good friends are even doubting if I do anything now a days :P 

So see you soon! Lemme see how it works.. and I was wondering if you all are interested in knowing what I actually play and do. Other than come and comment in your blogs, hehe.

P.S.: I am on twitter! if anyone of you are there lemme know!

Hello again everyone! Welcome to another entry in my 3 year old journal where I have been recap-ing the different stages of my gaming (life). Last time I talked about how PSone taught me many things. Things like "Know before you buy" and "Don't fall for franchise".

This time, I will talk about different rules that I and my brother set, to make good purchase decision and to enjoy them to their fullest. These weren't things that we sat and carved onto stones or something, they were things which we did by learning from experience. Something like how the cavemen learnt "red hot air, bad", "chanting and running in circles, GOOD"

But of course there were times when cavemen burnt themselves out of curiosity and started swinging their hips instead of only jumping around. Similarly, we too did a lot of things like that. Let's have a look!

The Rules

*I OK, U OK... Buy OK

Ever since the NES era, we always scrutinized every cartridge before buying it. Back then, we didn't even know of a word called "review" it was all "word of the mouth" or we decided by looking at the pictures on the cartridge and maybe asking the shop person to keep it in the demo console and let us play it. In the later stages, shops selling PC/PSone games were very far away, so whenever we went out for shopping, we bought atleast 3 games. We never knew what games we would buy before reaching the place. It was just a trip to the shop and then "see what they have" and select the best.

I, being the younger and more excitable one would always go "ooooh !!!" for every other flashy game and then my brother would put me back to my senses, telling me why buying that would be a bad decision. The "cost" factor would play the biggest role, with the question being "Is the game worth X Rupees?"

My brother could easily figure out which one was a bad game and which one was worth purchasing, so I would first search around and then pick out some games. The final screening was done by my bro where he would select the games which he felt were worth buying. I would always try to use my puppy face and make him say yes to other games.. but he was almost always firm on his decision. Why "almost" you ask? Well, there were times when I pleaded very much and he gave in, or times when I would circumvent the system and use my puppy face on parents :P Which ofcourse, lead to most of the things listed in the previous entry.

All those reasons he used to give for not buying a game are still stuck in my head. I always ask myself "what would bro say" before buying anything and I can happily say that it has saved me from many bad decisions!

*2 heads are...more than 1?

No matter which game, if it had Co-op in it, we would always sit together and play, even if one of us didn't like the game. This lead to many sessions of me "borrowing" my brother's lives in Contra, to running away quickly to get that slice of pizza :P However, I later started leaving the pizza for my bro if the health was low.

Even during the times when we were glued to the PC, we would always sit together and play games, be it SP or Co-op based. I remember sitting and playing games like "Thrash It" and "Neighbours from hell" with my brother. Even strategy and FPS games we played together. Things like "What should be the entry price for the park" in RCT to "Go this way. No, that way" in Quake III :P

Another silly little thing was that I always took the 1p in every game, no matter what. Being the small one sure did get you what you wanted :P I used to feel that being 1p gives you extra powers. During the Atari days, even though I was the one who would always break the controllers, I demanded that I get the good and new one every time I play. Which my brother always agreed to, only after he gave me a nice explanation on how sensitive the controller was and that I should not break it.

*Don't Play What the other's playing!

We always played games together, if it was not a co-op game, one would sit and watch the other play, and I was usually the one sitting and watching, as I could never imagine myself playing games like Jurassic park on NES or Nightmare Creatures on PC. Till the PSone era, games basically had no "story". Those games would just last for one session, and were usually brainlessly simple, yet very fun.

But then came games which required memory cards as they were longer than, say, 10hrs in game play. From this time on, we started playing games at different times. And I don't know how and why, but we always had this thing where I played one game and my brother played something else. I.e if I played Spyro, he would play Crash Bandicoot. I played DMC, he played PoP, I played MGS and my brother played Splinter Cell games.

There were times when I went "MGS came before Splinter cell, SC is a copy" (same for DMC- PoP :P) but that was not the reason why we didn't play the other game, there was this mutual understanding between us and we automatically stayed away from playing the other's game. But, almost always, I would sit and watch when my bro played.

The Rules Be Bending!

We have been playing games together for 10 years now. It was obvious that our tastes were similar, we knew there would be one fine day when things will start getting messy. But luckily the first game where we both played the main story separately never got us into arguments. It was DigiMon Digital card battle. The combined gameplay time of us both was more than 300hrs for that game. Time slicing was implemented so that both would get good time to play.

*The Game Arrives!

But soon it came... what was it? It was TOMBA2! One fine day I stumbled upon the game while vacationing in Saudi Arabia. Without a moment of doubt, I bought it telling bro that it is a sequel to an awesome game I already played. I had to bend the rules here, by telling him how awesome the first one was , adding all kinds of adjectives to the game :P

But all that had a reverse effect! When we finally bought and started playing it, my brother told that he will play the game first, because he too seemed to like it. (He did see tomba back when we first played it, but didn't play the whole thing like me) And with him saying that he will play it first, I went :shock:

I was like "I want to play it! I was the one who played the first game, lemme play the second game too"
Then he said "You can play it too, it's just that I will play it first"

*I Play, U Play... Who Play First?

I knew that I will be playing it later, but the fact that he was going to play it first did something inside me, that lead to total unrest and left me watching the starting of the game with "sad-face". This was when everything changed, we played the game one after the other, fixing exactly 1.5 hr for each. Since it was the vacations all we did was sit and play, daily. Just when the 1.5hr session would reach its end, the next player would stand near the door and show himself so that the player can save the game and get ready to shift :P

Haha, it sure was a different experience, we would always spy during the ending times and see who got further into the game, just for some self satisfaction. After a few days of playing like that, we knew that the game was nearing to an end, and the heat was ON.. I and my brother played like there was no tomorrow to get one step closer to the end.

Was it because of me getting the first alternating chance or me playing quickly? I don't remember, but one thing I do remember.. I was the one to finish the game first. And OMG the joy was overwhelming. Not only because, one of the best games I ever played was completed, but also because

"I beat you to the end, BRO!"

I just stood up and started running here and there after completing the game, and showing off my to brother :P I sure was a pesky kid back then, hehe. After that, during the last parts of my brother's game, I sat beside him and watch silently. It was like one of those cartoons where a character plays poker and the other nods the head saying "no". I always tried my best not to answer the puzzles, as answering one would lead to the completion of game not being a "complete achievement" for my bro, and I know that it will annoy him completely.

So what happened when my brother ended the game?

I was sitting there, silently watching the last battle, and my brother was fighting the intense fight.. and as soon as he finished, I was sitting there, smiling with all my teeth shown :D I was showing more happiness than my brother.. you could say my smile could have easily be taken as a smirk and MAYBE would have caused the number of teeth to decrease too, if the other person was not my brother :P

Well, In the end, I can confidently say that, all things aside, both enjoyed playing the game. How can I say that? Well, we both beat the first game (me for the second time) after playing Tomba2, and then beat Tomba2 after playing Tomba1 for that special thing that it does when a High AP Tomba1 save exists in same mem card! The game itself was really good and unique, just as good as Tomba1 was, talking about that here would double this posts length easily, so let's keep it for later :D

Until next time..

I am sure many of you reading this, with/without Siblings, usually have a set of rules pertaining to you gaming habits too..what are yours?

That's all from me, next time, it'll be a post about the transition from PSone to PS2. Hope you all had a good time reading. Here's a nice video for all the trouble :D

[video=cHUxnzWs5b0EuTPc]

Well, The taggification process that has been happening all over the GSverse has got me taggified,Bulletsword and TheIndianChild being the culprits. Now I have to Spit out some 5 things about me. so let me take this as an opportunity to tell some embarrasing old facts about me and also shamelessly brag and promote about things I have been doing, oooh yeah! Get ready!

1. Childhood

When I was a small Kid, I was nothing like how I am today,I was VERY thin/skinny whatever you like to call it and I never used to like studying,Used to be 12th among 20 people in CIass :P and always used to run outside and play. I and my bro along with all the kids in the neighbourhood would play things like war games and others ,where we took shaped sticks as Guns and Hid in abandoned Aluminum Sheds to take cover and shoot others, this was like when I was around 5 years old and my bro 9. Other things were like roaming around in the neighbourHood and playing Goty-Billa's (no, nothing to do with Game of the Year :P ) Its a game with marbles where we have to try and shoot others Marbles with ours so as to make them fall inside a dug hole on the ground (we used to have non-permanet roads everywhere) I think other Indians here would easily understand what I am talking about :P

Other than I and my Bro used to Collect Stickers a LOT, and there was this sticker game where all used to throw their stickers in air and the one whose sticker landed on the picture side would get everyone else's sticker :lol: and everyone used to be so seriously involved in this game that,one used to select proper stickers with right size and weigth by observing the wind and everything :lol: and there were some"legendary stickers" that we used to hunt for and challenge :lol: man, those were really fun days, roaming around in the block and challenging other sticker playing kids for their stickers. and this was when I was around 8.

Oh yeah, I used to play Cricket also, and I was the "No Runs but hit boundaries" kinda guy who used to not run at all and only see for boundaries :P I Can say I played pretty well too :D

Hah, If I wanted I can keep going on with my childhood filled things for the Whole blog :P Now onto the other things.

2. Academics

Till Third grade, my schools were very far away from home and I remember that I used to cry always on the first day of school in every new school :P And in my new school in Second Grade, the campus was very big, I don't remember actually what happened, but I kept searching for my CIass,found it and sat there in the last bench all sad and everything. Soon attendance time came but my name was not there in the attendance list.So the teacher asked me, who I was. I said I was the new kid, and after a bit of asking the clerk and everything they realized that I was in the WRONG CIass:| Soon the clerk took me to the right CIass room and I was greeted nicely like all 2nd grade people are greeted, by making me stand and all singing some "welcome" song :P No wonder the people in the other CIass looked to grown up and formal type, they were 3rd grade or something.

After I turned 9 years old, there was some kind of transformation in me, I turned from being the run-around-&-play-but-not-good-at-studies kind of kid to Sit-and-play-at-home-learn-new-things-and-be-VERY-good-at-studies kinda kid. I still remember the first time this thing happened.

When I came to HYD , I joined the school late(being the transfer student). I took notes from my soon to be CIass ates beforehand (the CIass teacher gives the notes when a new student comes, by taking them from the good students, that's how it works here in India :D ) Then on the first day came to CIass there was a Oral test on the Q&As from one chapter(White washing of Tom Sawyer :D ). The teacher asked me a question and I was able to answer it correctly, not only that, but also all the other questions too :P Everyone was shocked and wondered if I was from another school in the same area.

After that till my 10th grade it has always been either CIass 1st or 2nd for me. Getting 100% in maths and very good in almost everything else too :P Even though I used to not read a lot, I kinda got good scores.Usually, what the teachers used to teach in CIass would get stuck in my head and hence I was able to do things with less preparations.

And I absolutely don't like By-hearting(AKA Battifying/Ratt-na) :x Also I don't like doing reverse engg. In MCQs and finding the answers without knowing actually whats happening. Because of that stupid habit of mine, I am very good at Descriptive type papers and not so good at MCQs :?

Oh yeah, and I don't like Coaching/Tuition Centers AT ALL. I feel like they are factories and they give some standard things to students and they are made into brainless zombies.

As for non studies thing, I've been getting 1st/2nd in all essay writing and elocution competitions since I was 9 (English and Hindi :D) now don't be thinking all the other kids were dumb or something :P some of my CIass mates are in top level colleges in State/India now :O (even me ofcourse :P )

Hmm. Now aboot computers

3.Computers

You might be surprised to know that in some of my friend circles, I am known as a "computer guy" and they don't even know that I like games :P Almost everyday I get a call or two from close/distant friends and help them with their computer problems.I've already mentioned in my old blogs about the things I did with computer and all those things :D

As for computer related things I know.. here is a small list.

LOGO - Was pretty good at it, learnt it when I was 9 years old.
BASIC - Learnt it when I was 10 years old, but didn't exactly "master" it.
HTML and FLASH - Learnt it on my own reading books and stuff when I was 12-13 years old. Made some funky websites and animation back then :P

After all that my 9th CIass came from when I went more studies oriented type so didn't learn anything new on my own till I was 17! After that I started learning more of such things rather than exploring OS possibilities(which I did in those gaps). I can say I am pretty good at all of these 8)

C,C++ and of course PS :P I think almost everyone at present is kinda good at PhotoEditing :P

Presently learning Java and ASM programming, loving em both! But Have more fun during ASM programming, for some strange reason, the fact that I am talking in a language that is more easily understood by computer than the rest, makes me really TALK more to it, lol.

Yeah I am crazy like that, talking to my computer and calling it names and stuff :lol:

Oh yeah and I am also on my Path to become a Oracle Certified Professional, Recently finished my 1st exam,82% woot!

Also did some batch programmin on Windows, made some shutdown timers, auto close softwares for media players and other things that make my life easier. Also assigned them to my customisable MM Keyboard and everything is done at the touch of a button 8)

Oh yeah and I love reading about Computer hardware and how things work, a LOT. Its very interesting to see how all of it was made, trying to emulate how exactly human body works, its almost like they always had biologists guiding them when the advanced computers were made.

Theres more to tell, but I think that's enough for some bragging :P

4.No Replay

I've never replayed a game after completing it (ofcourse,after the SNES era, SMB etc, were always replayable), when I first play a game, I play it at a slow pace , enjoying everything that the game has to offer. And most of the times when I complete it, its very near to 100%.

If its not 100% then 90% of the times its because the extra things are tedious tasks that feel more like a chore than enjoyment. GTA being the best example with those Rampages and stuff, I mean, doing 1 -5 is fun, but all 25? It feels more like a chore to just get that silly "100%" in the completion stat. Also if we leave it like that, somefine day when I am in the mood to play GTA, I will have those Rampages to kill time with. Hence leaving them like that is good :P

5.The Internet

Internet first started commercially for home use at around 1999 or something, and just when it first started in our state, We took internet for our home. I remember the first websites I went were "Cartoonnetwork.com" and "Games.com" I also found "Gamespotter.com" I don't know how... after that I came across Gamespot.com. And since then I can say, I've been coming to GS regularly.

At first the internet was 33.6K dialup and all so doing internet was rather tiresome, so it was like, once in a week or so I visited GS, and also we had to use less of the internet as it costed not only the telephone bill but also those internet charges AND the line would be engaged if we used internet. Hence we used to go online very less.

Then we got a dedicated line setup just for the internet (@ 1 Rupee) and started using internet regularly (and me coming to GS regularly started from then). And thus ~ HALF of my life I've been coming to GS and in that Half you can say, the second half I started coming to GS Daily, even when I was on vacations , in some other country :P

I don't know what or why, but GS has been a very integral part of my life, and its where I learnt many things and had lots and lots of fun. Even after the whole JeffG issue and most people leaving the place, for some reason something is holding me here, I think its all the great friends that I've made here. Knowing all of you and talking has been a great pleasure!

Along with one of my Friends (SM2099) last year, we did a podcast thing for E3 , just trying out if we could sit and talk about games and not get bored, and we talked alright! For >3 hours! Lol.. we had to make the podcast in three parts and our podcast was selected by the good people at Videogamesblogger.com you can see it HERE or HERE

And recently we thought maybe we could make a blog somewhere and talk nonsense just like that, so that whatever new things we learn , others can also know :D its not something we are trying to make money or something like that(hence no ads) we are just trying to show our perspective to others.

And mostly because I have this blog of mine RESERVED as my special journal, that would be the place where I rant :lol: but no worries, people from Artist's café, I will still be a regular there ;)

-------

Yup, I think that's all for self embarrassment and Shameless bragging/promoting from me :D So becareful people, next time you "Tag" me or try to do something funny, you are going to get Overdosed :lol:

Ah, and how can I keep quite and not "Tag" some other... so.. who shall it be?

I choose.

U1, neerajkumar_4 , yian , Bozanimal , and mnbskydoll

And since I wrote this long blog and also since 2 peopletagged me.. as extra bonuses

kenshinhimura16. thalesa7x1 PeldonPeldon

ProtegeRuckus I tag you!! Ooh yeah, you said you wont be blogging, but wait, what are you gonna do now?! Hehe (I hope you are still there :? )

Also AbuSharkas8 , where have you been man, hope this taggification brings you back!

Oh yeah, that's all for now, I would have written a lot more, like things about me being a Underground GS score betting Champeen, Music,anime, movies, and all, but lets leave that for some other virus infestation.. maybe...

"The GS Tag 2: Sequel to the chain that snapped em all"

Welcome once again everyone, to another entry of my continuing journal where I talk about the games that I have played in the past. Last time, I had a look back at the games for the PSone that I liked a lot. In this entry I will show you guys all those not so great games that I bought. Also, being the kid I was, I bought a lot of those franchise oriented games, which I regret buying even now. But with every such mistake I learnt a new lesson! I will talk about all those mistakes and lessons in this entry :D In addition to those, I will introduce you to the game that I think that was by far one of the worst games I ever played. So let's begin!

*Lesson 1: New Dimesion + old games = Bad result

Being a huge contra fan during the Nes days, I wanted to try out how they looked in 3D and bought C: the Contra Adventure for PSone, and well, it was nothing like those uber cool NES games where you had great levels, awesome music and good 'ol S gun.This was no where near fun, and what was this with the 3D thing? I mean the back view 3D gameplay was plain bad!

Lesson learnt: Games that were "super cool" in previous generation need not be as cool as they were when they are brought into the new generation with CHANGES. This theory is highly supported by another game... "First person BOMBER" anyone?

*Lesson 2: Digimons don't always do the same thing.

Next on list were many other games based on digimon.After playing Digimon Digital Card battle and having 100s of hours of fun, I started thinking every other digimon game was that cool too. And bought Digimon world 2 and Digimon Rumble arena games, both I played for some time and left off... they were nothing like card battle and were a bit boring. The rumble arena game was in theory pretty cool, we could evolve during the game, stages had some effect, but after playing it for a while realised it was TOTALLY a dud.There are so many things that active imagination can do to you, I thought of something really cool, but this was not all that great. So after a few sessions, I said bye bye to the game.

Lesson Learnt: Games based on the same franchise need not be of the same quality, they can be of different genres and hence not as good as the one that you liked. For Ex. You have Mario and then Mario's Pyjama party.

*Lesson 3: Lemon&&Orange = Citrus, but taste different.

After playing some really nice platformer games, I wanted to play more of those kinds, and Croc2 caught my attention, I saw that croc going around and saying all those "pshukao" and other sound effects as it hit others and was like "Wooow awesome, I want to play it!" and then soon, got the game. I liked the the gibberish talking thing in the game, but after that , the game's controls and camera made me have a not-so-good experience with it. The character moved VERY slowly, and because of the not so responsive controls and bad camera controls it was hard to complete some quests (like that boating thing in the first level).I tried my best to "enjoy" the game, but after a few hours of playing it, I finally gave up and shelved the game.

Lesson Learnt: Every game of the genre you like will not be as good as the games you like from that genre.There is Monster Truck Madness and then there's Big Rigs.

INTERMISSION

Tired Reading all that? well, take a break, get some drinks, watch this fun movie for timepass :D

[video=JH1nlWev5bwNvzTW]

*Lesson 4: Beware of Franchises!

Psone really taught me that franchise (movie/cartoon etc) oriented games should not be bought unless you really really want em.... But most of the times, since I was a kid back then, I "really really" wanted the game if it had the name of the cartoon I like(d).Hence started the ever-growing list of such games in my Psone collection, most of the times I had no clue what the game was , I used to just see the title then go "OMG Captain Wonderpants!!" and get the game, then while playing, realise its some game about Captain WonderPants Ironing his ThunderPants :|

A good example that really happened with me was with a Rugrats game, with RUGRATS written all over it with huge letters.The game happened to be something about angelica doing girly things like shopping and stuff. I still wonder how did I ever buy that game :| (oh yeah, I forgot, I "really really wanted it" as it was based on a cartoon I liked back then) I played 3-4 floors of that game and then it seemed like every game was just repeating with random characters for all the minigames . so just left it after that(played 2-3 hours of it nevertheless :o)

More Franchise Oriented games would be games like Toystory Racer, Looney Toons Racing, and other such racers, all were the same, very much like Mario kart (which I hadn't play back then) they all had some extra modes with collecting things and timed tasks,I did have some fun with those, because of them saying their punch lines and all, but no matter what, after playing these games for some time the fun drains out, there were only a few good levels, it was not that challenging and for LTR the load times were long.

There were a lot of disney games too, games like Disney's Dinosaur, PeterPan, the LAND before time (OMG this game was ________) all were NOTHING like the movies and were pretty boring too.Then there was a Scooby Doo game, and I thought "This can't be bad!" because I played the Scooby Doo game for SNES which was pretty awesome, had graphics as good as the cartoon itself and was pretty interesting too (finding the ghost, laying a trap and then unmasking him! ). BUT, this game was NOTHING like that, it was a 2D-back-view-run-a-thon. Just saw some of the cinematic, played a few levels, and then SHELVED!

I was (and AM) a big fan of the Jungle book movies and show, and I Love the "bear necessities "song and hence I also own...."Jungle Book Rhythm n'Groove" although I didn't (and don't) own a dancepad I bought the game ( I realised afterwards it was THAT type of game, lol).Since the movies' songs were really nice and the difficulty was EASY, I just went through the whole game one song after the other and it was like revisiting that movie again.The songs were great, the dances were not and it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be :(

And a few new games like SHREK's Treasure hunt and Harry Potter games also I bought, all again making me wonder why I even bought them.

Lesson Learnt : Keep away from these things even you "really really" want them... only buy them.. if you "Really really really REALLLYYYY" want them.Its so clear now, why they still make games like Open season and others , people like my old self will definitely make their parents buy them (and there are going to be a LOT of kids like that) I wonder how many will buy LOST game with blind affection, it's not just the kids afteral.

*All Franchise games are not Bad

BUT, there were quite a few games that I bought, which were based on something that already existed as a cartoon, movie or some in some other media, and enjoyed. Games like Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster, it was a really interesting game, the starting logo thing by Jackie himself is still stuck in my brain "~~Radikul entatainment~~" the action in it was great,the character animations were also cool, only thing was that character likeness was...... :? I was wondering if that guy really was jackie chan. But well the cover did have his EXACT photo on it.

Goofy's Fun house, The game was not that good, it was very very simple and was practically the easiest game I ever played, I finished it in one sitting, but why was it good? Well it had many Goofy cartoons in them :D whenever one mission was completed a new cartoon was unlocked, so seeing that there was a nice reward I completed the game in one sitting. It was the game's reward that makes me thing that this game was worth it :D it was fun while it lasted, after wards I got a software to rip videos off the disc, and lo, I have them on PC :P

HotWheels Turbo racing was quite good and entertaining, it was one of those games that I always wanted to play when I had free time, for some reason it seemed cool, maybe it was because I was racing hotwheel s :P

*All bad games are Not Franchise oriented

All this however, doesn't mean that only franchise based games are BAD, well there are bad games in this world which have no BG and were made in the first place to be a GAME and were still BAD, how can this happen I wonder, if its some kind of Bug loaded game then maybe ok, but if its really bad, having no point at all, then why even release it? I really feel sad for the people who spent hours on that game.

This brings to the game that I mention in almost every place where I am asked about bad games, its none other than LONE SOLDIER! Oooh, such a cool name, no? Lone soldier : "I am a lone soldier going to kill you all with me guns and grenades" that's what I thought, first rambo came to my thoughts and then I thought "omg, this is going to be as cool as CONTRA, is this 3D contra? I can't wait to play it!"

So I put the game in, and the starting cinematic was this cool 3D thing in some kind of industrial place with red lighting being shown, and I was like "Ooooh so ThreeeD" then the game started. No intro of character, no Mission , no nothing, I was thrown in some waterfall type area (if my memory of this years old even is right) given a gun and then, Shooot, shoot shoot.

The character animation was :shock: the legs moved on their own accord without having relation with the distance being actually moved, the turning was like some manikin, the grenade explosions were __ there was NOTHING in the game, just walking (in a strange way) and turning (in a stranger way) and shooting blindly... and yeah, die-ing, for every minute or so. I feel like making AVGN type video of that game, or atleast, have him review that game :P it sure meets the characteristics to be commented by AVGN, Its BAADD really really BAAD.

Oh yeah, the game is STILL on sale :o I mean people really want to buy that game? For 18USD? Omg, my deepest regards for the one who actually buys it and plays it.

As for the game,I couldn't leave the game just like that, because I was feeling sad inside that I made my parents spend money on this game, so no matter what I sat and played a bit more of the game, and then after I felt I was punished enough (by having to play the game):P This was the FIRST game, I used as a cup tray, and also gave it away for free.

*A new Beginning..

From this experience something new started, Whenever I bought such a game which was bad, I would punish myself by completing the game or playing it for as long as I could bare. So that I would learn not to make the same mistake, but Alas, I didn't learn from the first time.the NEXT generation was more punishing, because I went as far as Playing the Whole game whenever it was really bad, it was a bit masochistic, but, well that sure did teach me a lot and made me what I am today. (I didn't buy that transformers game :P or any game based anime I like)

Oh wait...... I did buy THIS GAME... :shock:

Ultimate Lesson 22: As nostalgic and fun it is to buy games by having no idea about them and experiencing them first hand.Do so only if you can justify the purchase by either getting some money back (not possible for me, as no ebay :( ) or if you are daring enough to play through it completely.

OR just go to the interwebz (Which was just a starting phenomenon in my locality, then) and visit sites like GS BEFORE buying a game, you will have a basic idea atleast of what type of game it is.

Well that's it for now folks :D meet you next time in my entry about the final games I played on me PSone before entering into the then NEXT GEN gaming.

As a closing ceremony, Here's my latest user Vid :P

[video=d3ZglWb-5bwEvz_X]

My bro has gone back to the US for a while now :? , and I finally have some free time :D so I can tell you guys what exactly did He bring :D here are the answers! pic-by-pic

As Everyone easily guessed, its a WIiiiiIii (Wii code added in my profile :D )

• Performer: Its a Remote controlled Helicopter (We both wanted a Remote controlled flying thing since childhood :D )
• Bright Box Below That: A Seagate 320GB Sata HDD :D (along with another 320 GB Ext HDD because of which I have 26 partitions XD)
• Wii Play and Extra Nunchuk
• Uncharted: Drakes Fortune :D
• Super Paper Mario
• A Box with Lxxxx written on it: Its a Legacy Wooden Finish Wireless GH Controller for the PS2 with Extra Pedals!
• Another Small Box below it: A Mutli DVD collection of 50 Horror Movies!!! :shock:

• Super Mario Galaxyyyyyyy (super awesome game!)
• Transformers Special Edition DVD
• Super Mario Strikers Charged :D

• A special Metallica CD.
• Metroid Prime Corruption
• 4GB Kingston Pen Drive :D

• A Special HeadPhone set, which when USB powered has super Bass Producers that BOOM and shake at the ears :D (awesome in action!)

• Special Component Cable to Connect my Wii,360 and PS3 all together.(Using only for 360 and Wii)

• All those things along with more games (not in pictures) and Many Cartoon DVDs(all of which we watched) and
• Planet earth Blu-ray collection (4 Blu Ray discs of awesomeness! )
• Blue Planet DVDs
• etc, etc

Phew! That was a big list! there were more things he brought not pictured :P But this is all I can show :twisted:

As for my Present life.... two great things happened

First of all, A video I sent to CNBC (india) was selected and aired in their Tech Show, and the prize for getting selected reached me recently and it was.....

a Nice 3rd Gen Ipod Nano :D I never wanted to buy one, and now I got one for free, so am enjoying it to the fullest :P Copied AVGN videos and TTFF(dragonForce) video that a good friend introduced me to!(I know you know who you are,Numbered person ;) ) and all the songs I love(most of which to which I was introduced by a semi numbered person GS friend :P )

And Just yesterday, I went to a college's(IIIT Hyderabad's) Tech Fest (Felicity).I met my GS friend Shiben there and had an awesome time watching his office and all the cool Computer graphic things he is doing research on.

The Fest also had a EA Mobile workshop there. I just visited that place, because this was the FIRST time I ever saw anything related to gaming have such a thing.

The whole thing was basically like an advertisement to join EA Mobile games :P , they did show some nice and secret Spore and other videos though :shock:

I came with a friend who was telling that we should leave, as soon as the PPT ended, But I told him NO, because I knew that there would be goodies after the whole thing, and YES there was!

They told that they would ask questions and the person to answer it would get a gift. With full excitement I sat and heard the questions.

"What is the latest Burnout game, and for what platforms has it released on".......

I was like :shock: and answered it in a flash and got a Free game! I could select one of the three (C&C3,NFS MW, and MoH:A ) I took MoH because the other two I own and I already decided that I would never buy MoH :P

after that they asked more questions, 2nd one was

"What are the controllers in Rock Band"

Without a seconds gap even before I got back to my seat I answered it expecting another free game (well no problem if I get more, no?) and they cancelled the question, lol.

but even then I answered the 3rd question, and they were like

"No, you can't answer any more questions"

So I told the answer for the next question to a person sitting beside me and had him have the game :D

Afterwards they started giving T-shirts and caps, I was going to answer, but even then they didn't allow me to answer, lol. they were bascially asking easy question (but others couldn't answer them :P ) They were asking me to come to the place they were standing rather than sitting in the audience :P

well, after everything finished I went out and showed the thing to my other friends and they asked me to pose for a Pic, and well,

This is the best I could do :P

:lol:

Well, thats it for now, and I think this will be my last timepass type blog, and I will resume my Gaming(life) blog from next post :D

Have fun Everyone!