I've been seriously stressed for almost a month straight now, but I'll be ok.  I'm getting used to it while it is also going away on its own at the same time, so I'll be fine.  I'm grateful for all my kind friends/family who are worried about me.  I've just had some really stressful weeks and it takes a while for everything to smooth out.

Time to be honest: I want to die.  I just want out.  Before you call the police, I'm not suicidal, just very stressed.  I feel like my entire life is a battle right now and I am tired of fighting.  Again, I'm not going to kill myself, so don't worry.  I am, however, looking forward to that day I meet my Maker.
You just keep going I guess, just keep playing a level even if the end boss keeps beating you.  I may feel REALLY out of it right now, but I may be much better next month, who knows.  I also have a moral responsibility to those that love me not to kill myself, for I would cause them immense pain.

I think I'm getting a little bit better.. it appears all this stress and pressure can't out-damage my renew.

I've changed. Due in no small part to the issue mentioned in my last blog, I am not the same anymore.

It's hard to describe what I mean, but you know how there are certain, subtle, ways you think and act? Well, my personality and perspective on life has been tweaked. I don't just have different things on my mind than before, but I also act differently.

The way I speak to people is different, I feel less shy or something, but it's not shyness...see? This is why it's so hard to explain!!

OK, here's an attempt at describing it: It's like waking up. I feel all of a sudden like I've been asleep all my life, but I also simultaneously feel like I've just suddenly gone to sleep after being awake all my life. I guess what I mean is I can't tell if this new life is a step down or up from where I was before.

Also, everything I do seems so much more calculated, like almost everything is just a means to an end. Almost anything I do now is just to further a certain goal I have, I don't do things for the sake of it.

Argh! I'm coming across as an idiot right now, I just can't put it into words!! See this blog post? This is a great example of what I mean. Normally I would be summarizing the Revolution specs, or listing the best boss battles or something, but here I am ranting about how I've "changed".

For the first time I will step outside the gaming world in my blog. 

There's this girl I've met, and now I can't think straight.  I'm just so crazy about her I cannot, well, think straight.  As you can see, my ability to write smoothly is also hindered from having her on my mind.  It's like being tired or hungry and not being able to sleep or eat.  It feels like we were meant for eachother, I've never felt this way about anyone before, and everything feels different.  I fear this opportunity will pass me by, so I'm trying much harder than I ever have before (which isn't saying much) to not miss my chance. 

It seems cruel that the odds are sometimes automatically against you just because of what your genes made you look like.  I consider myself "ugly" - saying that feels so liberating, because then I know I'm exaggerating a little bit, and that it's not that bad.  Nevertheless, I am not "viewtiful" and I know that makes things that much harder.  You just play the cards you are dealt I suppose.  Of course, in this campaign I am not running on looks, I am hopefully playing to my strengths, such as intelligence, beliefs, personality, and humour.

I find myself feeling like Lloyd in dumb and dumber, saying that worst of all, I'm sick and tired of having nobody.  Gosh, I never talk like this, what's happening to me?

Best game music!

1-Baten Kaitos--> when you battle the evil "god" Malcerpio in the city.
2-Ocarina of Time--> the gerudo valley music
3-FF6--> the end boss, Kefka's, theme
4-Crono Trigger--> Glenn and Magus's themes
5-Super Double Dragon --> that level at the airport that went like "boom boom boo-oom boom boom boo-oom, dununananana, boom boom boo-oom...," you know the beat.  Also the theme when they are fighting on top of the currently moving truck with all the guys with swords.
6-All of Metroid Prime
7-"Peril" from halo 2, at the beginning of the delta halo level.
8-The end boss battle in Chrono Trigger.

Is it just me, or is there something messed up going on (how's that for an intro)? It's essential that the next-gen systems avoid bottlenecks, such as where you have great graphics capabilities, but not enough horsepower to use it, or the processing capability to move thousands of images around at once, but not enough memory to hold those images, for example. I know that for checking bottlenecks these companies use computer engineers, lots of charts, number crunching, and careful chip design, so I'm sure the big 3 are looking out for these details, but good heavens, I think I've found a big one.

Look at the Revolution, for example. The GameCube as far as I know was relatively bottleneck free, and well balanced, so Nintendo basically double to tripled the power or every part for the Revolution. Ok, cool, done. It remains balanced. But as I understand it, the Xbox 360 has around 6 times the system memory of Xbox 1, and maybe around 3 to 4 times the power in the gpu, so it all seems good so far... but then the cpu is, like, THIRTEEN times as powerful as the xbox's cpu!! Doesn't that seem out of balance? Why the heck is the cpu that powerfull if they are only using 512MB and have a 500MHz graphics chip? I figure alot of that newfound cpu power will go to making the games in HD, so with that taken into account it all balances out perhaps, but I'm not sure. I don't think Microsoft is crazy or anything, but I gotta say this has been on my mind for awhile now!

And don't even get me started on the PS3. Throwing a gpu into the system that's the equivalent of two graphics cards that are already on the market today (and have been for awhile now), but having SEVEN channels running at 3.2GHz for the cpu? Double-u, tee, and a big eff!

Haven't done this since 2004, and things change, so here we go:

1. Zelda: Twilight Princess
2. Tales of Symphonia
3. Smash Bros. Melee
4. Resident Evil 4
5. Metroid Prime
6. Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
7. Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2
8. Zelda: The Wind Waker
9. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
10. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

I am a news starved gamer, and this last while has just sucked balls when it comes to gaming news. Absolutely frick all has come out from the big three the last few months, and I'm going insane. I have to have some news to munch on when I'm bored, and now I've got nothing! Now I dream of E3, not for the news itself, but for the fact that there will BE some bloody news.... Just imagine, watching the Halo3 trailer 50 times, reading hands-on articles about all the new Revolution games, comparing the screenshots between Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid Prime 2, I can't wait!

For now though, I still have over 3 months (one entire quarter of a year!!!) with nothing to think about, somebody give me a smoke.

I've always said that going to HD means you have to lower the graphics tremendously compared to what would otherwise be possible in video games, but today I tested that claim for myself. 

I ran Halo PC (with the xbox360 controller to boot!) firstly in 480p 4:3 ratio resolution.  It ran at a steady 40 frames per second with vsync, loads of bump mapping, crisp textures, specular highlights, pixel effects, the works.  Everything was on the highest setting, and at 480p, the game shined. 

I then tried 720p with widescreen ratio and all the graphical settings the same.  If I was staring at a wall I'd get 30 fps (frames per second), but in a gunfight I would get the magic number 6.  You can actually get the game to display its current fps, and at 720p, it was almost always running at 6 fps. 

I then convinced myself I was right - about the 360 needing to crank down its graphics to get 720p running smoothly - by turning all my settings down to minimum.  Low res textures, barely any specular mapping and bump mapping, no pixel effects, no bullet shells in the air, no explosions, absolutely bare bones, and I managed to get it to run a little under 30fps.

This has convinced me that Nintendo has made the smart choice to stick with 480p for the time being.  When it comes down to 720p + crap graphics vs. 480p + beautiful graphics, the choice is clear.  Sure, the 360's visuals look great anyway, thanks to its expensive hardware, but now I know that 360 customers aren't getting the visual experience the system is capable of giving them, due to the imposed standard of HD.

My PC specs:
CPU: Pentium 4 - 2GHz
GPU: Ati Radeon 9550, 256 MB
System Memory: 512MB
OS: Windows XP