So, I'm watching X-Play on G4 right now, and I'm reminded how much I love Final Fantasy. I picked up Final Fantasy XII the day it came out... yesterday. And, MAN, am I enjoying it! I'm having trouble deciding what to play and when though, since I also got Guild Wars Nightfall as well. And, I'll be purchasing Need For Speed Carbon as well, which, happened to hit store shelves today. It's just too damn cold to go out though, so I'll be waiting until Friday to pick that one up. Then next week, expect a TON of reviews! Guild Wars Nightfall, Final Fantasy XII, and POSSIBLY Need For Speed Carbon, if I can play enough of it. And, ah, how I love Final Fantasy jokes. Oh, and SquareEnix... NEVER, EVER make any more sequels or remakes of old Final Fantasy games... EVER. Allow me to use examples... Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus... Final Fantasy X-2... need I say more. That's all from me. Later!

Talk about a fun game... Guild Wars Nightfall came out this past Friday. I had it preordered, Collector's Edition no less, at my local EB Games. I picked it up right away... even getting out of school early to do so. I've played a good 12+ hours in the past two days now, and I'm having a great time doing so. For those of you out there who have played it as well, what do YOU think? =)

In approximately a little over 26 hours, Guild Wars Nightfall will be released in stores all across the country. As of now, Guild Wars released an update that updated everything in the game to the Nightfall features. They also posted a list at GuildWars.com under the Game Updates section, which contains a HUGE update all on the new features added for Nightfall. Totally amazing.

It's interesting, because lately I've been realizing a handful of interesting things. My latest comes from the sound area of a video game. As many of you have noticed I'm sure, video game music is a vital part of a game. Thousands of people even purchase the music for listening outside of the game. But the thing that is getting everyone interested is the fact that video game music is getting amazing popularity to the masses. This is done by giving awards away for it at something like the MTV VMAs. There are a lot of music composers who are getting a lot of publicity from all of this. One major person is Jeremy Soule, who has made music for Guild Wars and Total Annihilation, and has won an award for his work on The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Other such artists to note are Nobuo Uematsu, who is now retired if rumors are true, and did music for the ever popular RPG, Final Fantasy. One other composer to note is Martin O'Donnell, who is doing the score for the Halo games. I, personally, have purchased music to all of the above games, including the soundtrack to Need For Speed: Most Wanted, which is more of a different type of music though. People all over the world are buying music from games, and in some cases, this music is even more popular than what you might hear on the radio. Some games decide to use music that is already released, but that is not what I am considering in this subject. Original scores made by original composers is what sets these games apart. I'm still quite shocked when I find an excellent original soundtrack in a game that I like. It always makes me wonder what else that they've done, and gets me interested in their work. As you may have noticed, game soundtracks are also starting to populate very popular means of download, such as iTunes. A couple of months ago, iTunes began to sell the Final Fantasy soundtracks, and I assume since they are still there, that they are quite popular. The question is, will video game music ever become their own genre, or will they still be in the background? I feel that video game music continues to emerge every day, and hopefully, with the increase in everything else that a game is getting with the next-gen systems, from graphics to control to gameplay, that video game studios will not forget about the music in a game, and will continue to make soundtracks that will wow us for years to come.

This is an interesting topic, because I've never had this problem before. This past Sunday, I participated in a video game tournament at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. The tournament was sponsored by Mazda, and was for the game Need For Speed Carbon, which, as we all know, is still not currently out yet to the public. As you can obviously tell, I did not win in this tournament, but it brought up a very interesting debate. Of the sixteen people that participated, the top four times were able to go on to the next round. But all four of the people that did had an advantage. For those of you that have an Xbox 360, you know that they released a demo for Need For Speed Carbon. To no suprise, they used the Xbox 360 version of the game at the tournament, but the dispute was, they used the same track that was in the demo version. Now, for me personally, I do not own a 360, and so I have not yet played the game at all. I, as well as the other people who had not played it at all yet, agreed that we felt this was slightly unfair. They also had set up a booth at the Mall of America ahead of time, for people to play the demo just for fun, and they played using the same car and track that we used for the tournament. The person who won the tournament had come and used the demo every day for the week before. I feel that this is totally unfair. The prize for winning the national version of this tournament is a new car, Mazda, of course. The playing field should have been level for us all. This game has not even come out yet, so we should have all had the same amount of knowledge and experience playing this game as everyone else had. This, obviously, was not the case. I must admit, I am quite unhappy with the way the tournament was held, due to the fact that there was already a demo out, not only at the location that the tournament was held, but also on the Xbox 360 for anyone to play already. Do I also not agree with putting out demos of games onto Xbox Live? Not necessarily, but I feel that if they are going to have a tournament using a game that is not out yet, that they should take into consideration that there is a demo out that could possibly give an unfair advantage to a certain group of people. It is an interesting topic that I truly never considered before, but brings up a very interesting point. Are video game tournaments unfair? Or should we not complain, and be able to adapt no matter how much experience that ourselves or our opponents may have?

In about two hours I will be participating in a video game tournament at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. It is a tournament with the game Need For Speed Carbon. I am quite excited for this tournament. I will post more afterwards. Thanks for watching my Journal. ^.^

This weekend could quite possibly be the BEST weekend I'll ever have. Saturday, October 21, 2006 - Weasel's Halloween Costume Party Bash Palooza / 2 PM - 11 PM / Weasel's house Sunday, October 22, 2006 - MAZDASPEED3 Need For Speed Carbon Challenge Tournament - 3 PM - 5 PM / Mall of America Come join me for both of them! Just let me know if you're coming!!

DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN. This complicates everything! OMG, OMG, OMG. So, oh man. Dude!! I was accepted to participate in the MAZDASPEED3 Need For Speed Carbon Challenge Tournament at the Mall of America this weekend!! INHERENT PROBLEM. I'm having my party on Saturday, and work Sunday! I pray that it's either early on Saturday, or on Sunday. I can get off of work for Sunday... I HOPE. Seriously, this is amazing. IF, keywork, IF I win this, I go on to NATIONALS in LAS VEGAS for a chance to win a new 2007 MAZDASPEED3! OMG, I need to train. NO MORE GUILD WARS. Not for the rest of the week. ONLY Need For Speed Most Wanted! Oh dear god, I can't believe they picked me. AHHH! I is excited. I hate it though! The Mall of America website says it's on Saturday, October 22, 2006. Saturday is the 21st, Sunday is the 22nd. WHEN IS IT?! I need to call around tomorrow. AHHHH! Excitement! ANYWAYS, that's all from me. I WILL be having the party this Saturday... you guys just may be rooting me on while I win at NFS:Carbon first! XD. AHHHHHHHHH!

My friend just came over for a while. He brought his new laptop, of which he loaded Guild Wars onto. So, we both grabbed our laptops, grabbed our USB mouses, grabbed our headsets, plugged into a power strip, opened Xfire, launched TeamSpeak, and played a couple o' hours of good ol' Guild Wars. What could be better? Well, having a more organized setup, having a couple more people maybe, and getting some pizza and pop... now THAT would be a night! I may have to plan that sometime... By the way! For those of you Guild Wars players, get ready. The Nuclear Weasel Guild Halloween Bash is coming soon! Keep watching here for more details. And, if you're interested in joining the party, comment here so I can get an idea of how many may be coming. Later!

Pretty straight forward. Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA - OWNED Guild Wars Nightfall - Collector's Edition - RESERVED Final Fantasy XII - Collector's Edition - RESERVED Guitar Hero II - NO STATUS Need For Speed Carbon - Collector's Edition - RESERVED Bring on Fall gaming.