hi. i'm being lazy so i'm not going to bother capitalizing my first letters in this entry (i know some of you might be annoyed by this, but i'm sorry if i'm making your eyes hurt).

so i've already decided what i'm going to re-name my characters (based on their traits and personalities, their names are limited to 5 letters, so I'll have to make them short to fit):

Luneth is an orphan raised by Nina and Elder Topapa in the village of Ur. adventurous by nature, his curiosity gets the better of him as he tumbles into a hole created by the great earthquake.
Arc is another orphan raised by Topapa. he is Luneth's best friend. unlike Luneth, however, he prefers reading over gamboling in the wild. his studies endow him with great knowledge that more than makes up for his shyness.
Refia: a headstrong youth raised by the mythril smith Takka in the town of Kazus, Refia seeks to venture out to the greater world - far from the tiny confines of the village. the smith's rigorous training leads her to run away from home... not for the first time.
Ingus: a loyal soldier of King Sasune's army, he narrowly escaped the Djinn's curse. His prime concern is finding the missing Princess Sara.

Luneth --> Dmitrii [ after my novel/short stories character; and don't get the idea that i like the traits. he's actually my least favorite among the four ] [ Dmitri ]
Arc --> Martine [ just because. as Napoleon Dynamite would say about THIS... ] [ Mrtne ]
Refia --> Micha [ traits. also in Indo if you have brownish-black hair, they call you a 'redhead'! ] [ Micha ]
Ingus --> Gardener [ because his traits remind me of the movie The Constant Gardener ] [ Grdnr ]

since FFIII on DS is the re-make of the NES version, i thought i'd share: the original NES version and the DS re-make.

strangely enough, tonight 2 people asked for my pic and i was making little LJ icons for myself for when PayPal eventually decides to give me a break. eh, i'm feeling kind of extrovertive atm, although i still feel like keeping Twitter/GS friends-only. so, the dim picture was taken @ the Thai place a day before i got my bangs cut. Eh I feel kind of awkward showing my whole face in places where more than my LJ friends can see:




[ be gentle, i'm not as hot as i say i am. i know that i have a lot of puppy-fat on cheeks ]

i need to get more vegetarian-fake-chicken-burgers @ hoogvliet and more vegetarian-fake-ground meat. they are vegetarian food, but it tastes like it's made of dead animals.

http://www.gamespot.com/tournaments/r6aug07/tv.php

-m76

"How are Counter-Strike, Rainbow Six Vegas, Tekken or From Russia With Love more violent than The Sims 2 University expansion pack?"

Oh academia... Why art thou so f*cking cruel?!

On the brighter and less suicide-inducing side of life: My pre-ordered Final Fantasy III is going to be in Dynabyte tomorrow.:) :)

Tomorrow I'll pick up my friend who's coming to visit @ Schipol. So I'll get FFIII the next day (stores only open until 17:00 to 18:00 in the NLs). OMG I'M SO EXCITING SHE'S COMING TO VISIT!!!!

Final Fantasy III DS Trailer
Final Fantasy III (DS) Video Review
Final Fantasy III DS Opening Intro [ beautiful music as usual and as expected!!!! I think the Jakartan Twilight Orchestra did a tribute to FF once, if I'm not mistaken... ]

Also finally got my hands on the dorm vaccum cleaner. Yay. I also got the "What's New #18 Ubisoft" CD-ROM brochure when I got games at Replay. Can't wait to see some trailers!

I bought my brother an old skool game the other day... And as much as Zooo [watch the gameplay here] looks like it's an easy puzzle game, it's REALLY not. Quite the challenge. Bought the game because I actually collect things that have giraffe stuff! Anyway, I got fake vegetarian-fake-chicken burgers at Hoogvliet and they taste/feel so real it's too good to be true!

[ edit ] Apparently on Zoo everytime you finish a round of levels, the animal you play says something obnoxious to you. Last time it said, "mais non, imbécile!" *jaw drop* That's the last time I'm playing in French. Boo. [ /edit ]

[ edit ] As you know, you're allowed to change the name of the characters. I like to name them what I want when enabled, because I like feeling attached to my characters. I have a vague idea of what I should RE-name them based on their personalities. I'll tell everyone what I named all 4. But for now I'll tell you that I re-named Ingus: "Gardener". Because his traits remind me of the movie The Constant Gardener. [ /edit ]

-m76

PS: Also I was looking at games and found this [NSFW, sexual content] and couldn't help but wonder if the guys who made The Sims will sue the people who did that... Ha. This isn't Bill-Gates-Being-Greedy speaking, but there are limits... I mean look at the damn pattern.

PPS: Posting in GS can be such a pain when it keeps telling you that you have unclosed HTML all around. Damnit. If you're on Facebook, add their Video Games app and if you're on Twitter follow http://twitter.com/FragDolls.

Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy VII

Which Final Fantasy VIII Character Are You?
Take your own Final Fantasy personality quiz here!

Sorry I haven't been around lately, I had some things to take care of!

Hey, Did You Know That 'Garuda' is an Indonesian Word? [As you all know, Ace Combat is Japanese-made].

How cool is that? Well. Not really 100% Indo. It's mainly just Asian. But oh well. It's the national coat. It's also the proper Indo airline (as opposed to those cheap airlines, Asian versions of EasyJet). Anyway, I don't think Garudas really exist. LOL. Do Dodo Birds exist? This is the 2K7 E3 demo. It's in the 6th (X360, non-PSP/DS). Damn x360 gamers get special hardware for it. And yet another good example of how beautiful graphics are on a next-gen console.

OH HOW UNJUST THIS WORLD HAS BECOME!
Ace Combat 6's Ace Edge Joystick and Throttle Controller for X360 users
Click HERE to enlarge and become bitter...

Anyway, my two latest games are Pilot Academy and GTA: Vice City Stories. I got the former at Replay and the latter at Dynabyte (which I love because the guys at Dynabyte are such sweeties and they're funny and I get a 10% discount everytime. LOL).

When I got Pilot Academy, I got Ubisoft's latest CD-ROM brochure that had a cool Rainbow Six: Vegas video in it. AWESOME. Anyway, I finally got Pilot Academy. The English version (I think for the US market). I'm kind of upset that it has such a limited number of aircraft. But I HAD to buy it because it was (as far as I know) the only handheld game which allows you to fly civilian (commercial, private) aircrafts. Out of the 20 aircrafts, only 5 were non-military. And from those 5 planes, only 2 were passenger planes. I think the rest were farmer/tractor planes, one was one of those mountain-ish planes and one was an acrobat plane. GAH. I'm not very far into Ace Combat X yet. Flight sims can be mighty disorienting. My kill rate there is SO low! It's lower than 20% whereas my kill rate on R6V is 100%.

Am I still entitled to brag about my 100% kill rate on R6V when I've thrown a grenade at myself?

I made a playlist for civilian flight sims: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=577C9A05864E8818

Anyway, I though the latest poll @ the Ace Combat Union was interesting. I'm not going to repeat what I just wrote in that thread. What I said wasn't interesting anyway... LOL.

And today I decided to hang around Dynabyte after shipping 3 boxes (each ± 15kg/+30lbs) to my parents' house [and having a crappy morning because I had a 2-in-1 dream featuring 2 guys I want out of my life, one is Indo and one is Dutch--BOTH in the SAME dream.]. Anyway, back to Dynabyte. The guys there are so funny. We argued about '80s music and freaked one out by saying "Well some of it is TOLERABLE" (NO OFFENSE, I know some of your are huge fans of the '80s. You can call the '60s/'70s lame if you want to get even with me :D :D) and he goes like "TOLERABLE?!" well Vice City Stories is set in 1984. And it's supposed to be a prime example of kitsch-ness in the '80s. He was like "You should listen to the radio station in this game, when I'm on flights all I do is listen to the cool music in it" and I'm like "Gamespot said Liberty City has a funnier radio station" and he's like "NOOOO!!!! This is way funnier."

Anyway, if you're into '80s music, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_Vice_City_Stories_soundtrack

I was a bit freaked out in the beginning because it said on the box "TEXT IN NEDERLANDS, SPOKEN WORDS IN ENGLISH" (it scares me because I was worried that they'd use Dutch street language. I'm not even that good at normal Dutch, so the use of Dutch street language/slang would've been a disaster), but the whole thing was in English. YAY!

[edit] OOPS! MY BAD. Actually it said "Spel in Engels, HANDLEIDING in Nederlands" so only the manual's in Dutch. Silly me. Anyway, I checked my other games (by EA, Ubisoft, etc etc) and it's what it says on De Sims 2. If that's how EA works here in the NLs, I might consider getting the De Sims 2 for PC and probably the H&M expansion pack. Or even The Sims 2 University. [/edit]

Anyway it was so funny because when I tested the game the first thing it said was (these aren't verbatim records, so not the exact):
*SPOILER WARNING START*
Character 001: Here, have this.
Character 002: What is this?
Character 001: It's a pager [sounding like it's so cool]. Welcome to the '80s!
*END OF SPOILER*

I cracked up laughing SO hard!:lol: :P

Oh technology.

-M76

PS: This is only part I, I'm going to write other things after my head stops hurting from Ritalin side-effects. I'm going to go read my friends blogs here. Bye. :) :)

This isn't game related but I'm so upset I just feel like talking to everyone about it... [DON'T WORRY: KEEP ON READING, there are NO spoilers here!]

I just ran into a Harry Potter 7 spoiler. I found out who died.

And I haven't even read the damn book because my brother says I can have his book after he's done reading and I wasn't in a hurry because I had other things to take care of (and I can't read that fast anyway, PLUS I'm moving back to my parents' soon and they don't like it when there are 2 copies of the same book because it means we don't share). I mean. It was icons under a cut @ GJ. And it said "SPOILER WARNING" and "MOVIE RELATED" on the header. Then I click the cut and it has an icon of a character that says "Out of all things, I die by __________ in book 7?"

My heart just sank and my face went so hot. And when I realized what just happened, I wrote "F*CKING HELL I JUST RAN INTO A MOFO SPOILER!!!!" in my Twitter. I think I was in shock or something. How ruthless can people be? If it's not completely "movie related" then indicate it's not.

-M76

1. Yeah, so I bet you've all heard about the racism issue with Resident Evil 5 (read that link it has some smart comments). Gah. I mean I was pissy about the Dutch PSP ad issue (because I did think it WAS racist). But Resident Evil 5? I think they've gone too far this time. The only reason why the zombies are black is because the game is set somewhere in Africa or somewhere where the population is mostly black. GOSH. And if it were set in Osaka, for instance, I don't think they'd call having Japanese/Asian zombies racist. GOSH.
2. On the in-game ads issue (which is currently GS's poll topic), I've always though it was okay IN SPORTS GAMES ONLY (Virtua Tennis, FIFA Soccer etc etc), because it adds to the realism (and some people actually think the same). But really, outside sports games I wouldn't like that.

Now on with the main purpose of my posting this blog entry. I've been hanging around the following websites (and webpage, for that matter):

• GameTrailers
• IGN Guides

I don't use them actively (like with GS, which is why I'm not giving you the link to my page in them and just letting ppl know my username, which is mia76). The on GameTrailers the reviews/trailers are mostly HD (which you don't have to pay for) and the IGN guides are AWESOME. :D

IGN guides I use:

1. Rainbow Six: Vegas [the 'Basics' and 'Equipment' sections were REALLY useful. But just don't read the 'Campaign' part because it just ruins the fun. :( This basically the PS3 version. But I'm on PSP so it's fine]
2. Lego Star Wars II [PSP]
3. Tekken: Dark Ressurection [PSP]
4. Lumines [PSP, not as pointless and useless as you'd think it would be]
5. New Super Mario Bros DS [DS]
6. Nintendogs [DS]

Favorite game reviews [all non-hand held versions; PS3, X360 and Wii]:

1. Virtua Tennis 3 [PS3]
2. Rainbow Six: Vegas [PS3 or X360, can't remember]
3. MySims [Wii]
4. R6V's Critical Acclaim Trailer [PS3]
5. MySims E3 2K7 Producer Walkthrough [Wii]

The non-hand held versions are definitely eye-candy! Imagine playing that on an HDTV... Bitter. Not to mention X360 and PS3 enable face-mapping. Boo. Me want a CT that looks just like me. I have this financially-indie-by-the-time-I-hit-25 plan, and when I am eventually financially indie I'm planning on getting a non-HH, but I can't decide whether PS3 or x360 elite is better. But of course I love my PSP/DS--they're pink! LOL.

-M76

PS: It took me a while to realize that the main objective of LocoRoco is "restoring world peace". I though it was just another eating game like Pacman. It's nice to play a game where eating and getting fat is something that's seen as good. Nice to do such a noble thing by eating. Anyway, I don't care, I just play LocoRoco to make my Roco fat. So much for idealism, huh? :|:|

PPS: Why do gamers like saying "peace out" so much? I'm thinking it might be like the reason I put "may wars only happen in video games..." as tagline on my LJ and Vox. Out of guilt.

PPPS: If you're so into world peace, don't study law or any variation of it (don't repeat the same mistake I did). Stay home, play video games and become a hippie.

So I have to write something to distract myself.

Rainbow Six: Vegas is SO good! And excuse my being nostalgic and sentimental, but New Super Mario Brothers DS brings back childhood memories. *sheds tears* (unfortunately I can't relate to this, but its good to laugh at). I also made a new video of Moreno and Petra.

Anyway, as you know, it's the end of the school year and my friends have all left. One by one. And my friend just got himself a PSP (black) but he doesn't have any games yet and he's busy with moving out so I don't think we can go Ad Hoc. Mind you, ever since I got my PSP, I've never found a place where I'm allowed to use wireless for non-school purposes and had anyone who also likes games enough to have a PSP and was able to play Ad Hoc with me.

So I went to Den Haag the other week after therapy and I went to my favorite toy store (where I got Ace Combat) and got Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (couldn't find it anywhere else) and I saw PLUSH NINTENDOGS!!!! I mean I've heard of them, but I've never seen them in real life. They come in 2 different sizes: The regular ones which are like 5-6 inches tall (12-15cm)--which are just your usual toys, play the usual stuff you know, not much you can do. But the ones which I liked were the REALLY BIG ONES (because the big ones seem like more fun). They were the size of a real puppy and they came with this bone that you can use to teach it tricks. Nice.

-M

OMG, I just saw Transformers with my friends. It was SO GOOD! I think it's one of the first (if not actually the first movie I've seen about Computer Network Attacks).

IT WAS AWESOME:
1. It was LOADED with aircrafts. Some of which were autobots. Oh man.
2. One of the guys wore a The Strokes shirt during most of the movie.
3. More than 40% of the cast not wearing a Strokes shirt on wore HOTTTT outfits.
4. I expected it to be (at least a tad bit) lame, it wasn't. At all.
5. I dunno if the best recent movie I've seen is Harry Potter 5 anymore (despite my being able to relate to Harry Potter 5 more).
6. My jaw was pretty much dropped during the movie... Very impressive. Although I do get sentimental. Bee-Otch Guardian.
7. Oohhhh: They played Hotei Tomoyasu's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" (popularly known as "The Kill Bill Theme") at one point [don't worry, I wont give spoilers]. One of the best pieces ever.

I threatened my my friends that if they go and see it without me, I'd commit suicide. It was worth it. I owe my friends my soul. Now I can die a happy woman.

-M76

PS: I don't care if they're unrated (ATM) or rated this low. Bring it on!

TRAILER.

MORE...

So I've been wanting to play Rainbow Six Vegas for a while now and I finally got it (not at Dynabyte, so I had to pay full price for it--which makes me sort of bitter because RSV is one of the most expensive games around). Anyway, so my PSP came with a 2.81 firmware. Never updated it because I never thought it was necessary. But today I got a message that to run RSV you'd need the 2.82. And I'm okay with it, was thinking of just doing it right away until it said my battery was too low to upgrade.

But then I suddenly remembered loads of people were DOWNgrading their firmwares? I still can't figure/remember why they would be doing that as I haven't been playing handhelds (PSP/DS) until I left my parents' house. Does anyone know why these people would be doing that? What are the disadvantages of upgrading? I mean I want to play the game, but what should I be aware of?

Thanks.

-M

PS: I don't mess around with homebrews in case you're wondering... I just don't have the guts to play with them. So my question really is, if I play non-homebrews all the time do I still have anything to worry about?

X-Posted @ [Why Would Anyone Be Reluctant to Upgrade Their Firmware?]: http://community.livejournal.com/sony_psp/383226.html & http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25774836

[edit] Just remembered to register my games OL @ UbiSoft and EA. [/edit]

[edit] I swaer I will never laugh @ the Frag Dolls when they throw grenades @ themselves on R6V ever again... [/edit]

Okay, so I was playing Battlefront II, right? And I was a Clone Trooper fighting in Naboo, I died by jumping into a pool and not knowing how to get out. Now aren't I a smart player? Oh man, that just made my day. Not the best gamer in the world, but that was the stupidest gameplay I did ever. Cracked myself up. Harder than when my Nintendog Moreno (who forgot all the tricks I taught him and caught flees after I left him for 1,5 months because of schoolwork) got me an R/C heli and turned out he's a sucker for it.

Also cracked me up was watching The Office on UMD. Great stuff. Anyway, I just got up this morning (after playing some Instant Fighting on Battlefront II and making attempts on reading a novel without Ritalin, now I'm from a heavy-reading family and I LOVE books, but it does take me a while. I think I finished one chapter and a half, go back to reading when I realize I'm daydreaming with a novel in my hand. It's just hard. But I'm quite okay playing games because I feel like I'm constantly being attacked and therefor I'm always on guard). Last night I dreamt there was an air-show and I could see all the jets from a balcony (of somewhere I was supposed to be living in that dream). Then earlier this morning, I dreamt that my brothers and I were jedis and I fought Darth Maul in an indoor parking lot-ISH. Somehow my lightsaber was a little too skinny for a light saber. It wouldn't go on, couldn't find the button, but in the end did him in the face. Weird dream. But nonetheless, Star Wars dreams are always great.

Although I did have a better dream were my parents take me out for ice cream and my Dad bought a huge glass with 27 flavors in it.

-M

[edit]Some game-related twitter accounts I follow:
http://twitter.com/gadgets
http://twitter.com/Gamealicious
http://twitter.com/gamersgame
http://twitter.com/games
http://twitter.com/gamesplay

If you're interested...[/edit]

Looks like these guys are trying to out-do PS3's Frontlines.

And I REALLY WANT COOKING MAMA. LOL!

I wonder whether these guys know that shooting @ medics (see the sniper section @ 03:03) IRL isn't allowed?

Now don't get me wrong, I love that video. And I don't mean to be an anal b*tch. It's great (and then again they may be totally aware that they aren't allowed to and that's why they're making fun of it). LOL. I'm just wondering. *shrugs*

Anyway, got Medal of Honor Heroes for my PSP. Because R6V on PSP has yet to be released in this country. Anyway. I got the most American game you can get... And it's not even in Amerikaans! It's in Dutch! I mean I'd be fine if it were a simple game. But this is like Dutch orders and list of objectives in Dutch. Godverdomme.

Hey, everyone. My homework is done. Anyway, I am a bit bitter because I thought (and had planned since April) then this day came I'd make a holier-than-thou entry basically condemning you all to hell because I managed gaming celibacy. But I guess I won't because I didn't go through it all. Anyway, yeah. Just to let you know why I haven't been reading people's blogs/review and stuff. I'll tell you more about what happened and the course about gaming and why I decided to quit gaming-celibacy. Well... I hope you all have a nice week.

I'm planning on taking a break on Ritalin this week. I really can't stand the side effects! They make me get headaches (I wake up with one every single morning), I get nauseous as hell, my mouth gets so dry and my hands get jittery the first few hours. I do also get very, very chipper and talkative. But then again, the first day I took it I was like doing errands and my room got sqeaky clean my hand-writing got neat. Weird. Doesn't make you smarter. Just makes you focus better. Wanted to prove it, so I played Lumines II. Broke my own record on the first try and skiped a rank.

Still I'm really dissapointed with my homework. I already mentioned this when I quit gaming-celibacy, but I got really sick the first week and I had 3 weeks so I only had like 2 weeks. which is stupid. I'm so angry at myself for getting depressed over the pettiest things... I can't believe I wasted my time on that. Grrr...

-Mia

[edit] Okay, now about the course where we study about games (I think it was my favorite course here. I still can't figure why there were 18 people in the beginning and ended up with only 5 people who actually sat the exam. But still it was great because among those 5 people who stayed in that course, almost all of them if not all of them were gamers--we got pretty close. It was a great course). Remember when I made this really long rant because I thought I'd fail the exam? Well I didn't. =) =)

I got another 9 for the second paper and an 8 on the exam. So I DID pass. The papers were never about gaming though. They were mostly about data protection and police work and how they investigate people and use computers. The course was like 25% about games the rest was about other things in Cyberlaw (excluding Cyberterrorism and Information warfare because it doesn't exactly fall under what the course is about, that's for another course).

The reason why I freaked out was because the deadly "Is Murder in Second Life Murder" question popped out and I gave an answer of what I thought and I thought it was stupid. Of course the answer was no. And I DID answer NO. But then I added that if an avatar murders someone elses avatar, (since in this game you actually cause grave damage to your credit card. LOL), everything you own there should be considered your property. And you should be able to claim liability--or something. Then I went about saying that this is when a game's genre gets important because you'd have to determine what the objective of the game is. Because well if you're playing a soldier then you're purpose of playing is either kill or get killed. Whereas if you play a game where the objective isn't killing or getting killed NEVERMIND. Point is... I didn't fail my exam for saying something that stupid. I worry too much. [/edit]

[edit] I'm kind of pissed that GS disables Firefox's spell-check somehow. So if you see any typos, do tolerate. I usually Ctrl+C & P on to my word processor when this occurs. But I'm too damn tired. Anyway yeah, the whole thing isn't over yet. Still have sh*t to do. Including trying to ship things I can live without back to my parents' house as I'm moving out real soon...

Anyway. I think I generally did a good job in keeping the amount of things I keep in the NLs to a minimum. OMG, if you could see the amount of clothes I brought/bought here in the NLs, you'd be surprised... I have so little clothes here that I have to constantly be doing laundry. Moving alone here hit me pretty hard, so I'm determined not to make moving back a nightmare even if it means my closets going to be empty. But still. Anyway, I do miss my Converses. Only have a pair here.

Still pretty pissed off because of other things I have to do now. The way life works is really funny isn't it? It's so unpredictable. I think I like gameplay a lot better. IRL things aren't as mathematical as AI. It not like:

Level 1: Takes 10 bullets to kill you, enemy soldiers are basically dummies.
Level 2: Takes 5 bullets to kill you, enemy soldiers' AI slightly increase.
Level 3: Takes 2 bullets to kill you, enemy soldiers' are smart as hell and the theatre is a maze.

IRL, things work really weird. Sometimes the more/harder you work, the less you get in return. Which I find really strange. I mean, it's happened before. I've been studying for like 5 years (incl. a semester break) after HS so I know. But they work in a particularly strange way here.

I imagine the way people look me is that I have an ego/pride problem and I'm not very good at handling failure. People don't understand that as ditzy and dumb I may seem, I do know where I stand. I do compare myself to people a lot (not that I'm super-competitive or anything, although the sterotype of an Asian girl would be she'd be a competitive-kiasu-b*tch-you'd-need-Sun-Tzu-to-help-handle and I'm sorry that's true SOMETIMES but I try not to let that happen to me***). So I know where I stand. Most of the time when I get sh*t results for something I just STFU because I know I deserve it.

The reason why I've been so upset with recent events is not about me thinking I'm smart. It's me being really upset that people fail to distinguish between an idiotic-noob and an idiotic-noob-who-makes-an-effort. I find that to be extremely insulting, because I feel as if people are laughing at me FOR trying too hard.

And maybe I do try too hard and I AM A NOOB. But... [/edit]