Last 48 hours:
1 movie showSherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, 2 hours sleep, 4 meals, 8 hours of attending lectures, 26+ hours ofDoom 3. Finally it concludes with the end of Doom3. What an awesome end to the year 2011!! All's Well That Ends Well.. bye bye 2011, you've been great!! m/

Sometimes our lives become too interesting happening to look real, it starts smelling like hollywood. This one time it happened to me.

It is an awesomely cool story.

A guy is watching a rookie from a distance. The rookie is fighting amongst the professionals. He is not winning but he is not quitting either. He has the raw energy, but not the subtle moves of the master of the art. The technique is almost not there. Nonetheless he looks promising.

The observer, the coach. The forgotten legend. The champion. Been there done that, more than hundred times. He imagines the moves he would have used instead. Smooth and precise, touch of perfection from the master. Everybody knows that this man rarely teaches anybody. But all of a sudden, he decides to make an exception. For this rookie.

There was this brand new online gaming phenomenon called GunZ-the duel. The greatest free massively multiplayer game available in India. This was a world of guns and swords. Fights are held in amazing artistic arenas ranging from prison to dungeon to mansion to colosseum. The gaming experience was unlike any game played before. Fast as hell, shoot and slash faster than any game played before. You can run on walls, perform flip offs of them, climb higher on it by stabbing it with your sword and jumping higher, quick mid-air dodges in any direction and what not.

There were certain secret combos to show-off in that dynamic arena. The most difficult and celebrated one was called the butterfly. With 'the butterfly' technique, you can not only continuously dodge sword and bullet attacks using your rapidly slashing sword but also attack with the sword. 'The butterfly' move was legendary, a very few knew the combo, and among them hardly a few could actually perform the same. You needed to be perfect to perform that move.

When I was in the initial stages of my GunZ career, I was a decent fighter. I though was merely level 10, with my low level weapons I was able to beat the crap out of many higher level players. During one of those late night sittings, my fight was being watched by a player called DS. In that arena he killed many, used 'the butterfly' many-a-times. Tough I couldn't win the round, I gave him a tough time. He invited me to a new arena. We chatted a bit about the game. He told me that he liked my gameplay and asked me "do you want to learn 'the butterfly'?" That was one of the best moments of my online gaming life.

He took me to a new arena 'training the_devil', locked by password. Hahaha! Funny name, how can you train the_devil? Anyway, I accepted. And the training started. Moves broken down to pieces, then smaller level combos that were the basics and finally, the butterfly. Thoughout the training, many players kept whispering into the arena, begging DS to train them as well. He ignored them. The training went on. It took about one hour to teach me the move to a certain level. To reach perfection I needed to put in many more hours of practice. After that we chatted more, when he told me how a player called NightShade had taught him this technique a few weeks ago.

Man!!! I was living in a fantasy world relishing the best moments.

I developed my 'butterfly' technique to a certain level below perfection, but never found enough time to play the game, let alone practice the move. But the master rookie thing in hollywood movies seems quite real to me since then.

Sleeping from 9 pm to 9 am.. It feels great!!

How could it happen? I call this phenomenon the Mass Effect. Some of my gamer friends might have been there done that. Well it is not difficult to imagine or understand.

It all began a day ago, when I started playing this intense game called Mass Effect 2. The game was so engaging and brilliant that I almost forgot to sleep one night. I kept playing the game all night to realize it when the brightness of my window increased with the rising sun. It was a bright sunny winter morning at Kolkata. Although it felt a bit unusual to see night turn into day when you keep playing your game. But, it is the well-crafted game's hallucinating power to keep you amazed and engaged.

my windows: one to real-world and one to surreal-world

I won't say that I didn't get a warning. Around 5 am in the morning all the birds of IIMC sanctuary (yes, it is a bird sanctuary), gave me an alarm "dude, it is 5, go to sleep". I had snoozed it to realize later when the sun was bright. I kept playing when I realized that it was 7 am, it was then that i decided to exit the game and get some sleep I had a lecture to attend in at 10. But reaching to the exit button wasn't possible till it was 8.

Slept for about 2 hours and then attended lectures till 4 pm. I rushed to my room as soon as it got over, and logged into to world of Mass Effect to save the Universe. Fighting, negotiating, rescuing people, space traveling, mining precious metals, I kept on going till 8 pm. After I had dinner, I just fell into my bed and slept like a log. 9 to 9. Straight 12 hours. Waking up fresh. Its exhilarating. I feeling climbing a mountain, rafting down river, walking a thousand miles. Energy level at 100%. It feels great!!

07/12/2011

Did I tell you that I did a all-nighter once again. :-P

Mass Effect 2 is a great game. You must do it sometime. I hope it doesn't take me more than one night to finish it all up.

08/12/2011

Why do all good action games get finished this fast. First, it was Halo 3, 3days finished. Then, Call of Duty 3, 3 days. Now i got Gears of War 2. I have just sat once. In a go i had 10 chapters cleared. It seems only 13 more remain. This sucks.. Why do they have to be this short. I don't mind playing another 100 chapters. Amazing game. Although i got the code for downloadable "every map pack, add-on campaign and more*" as per my GOW2 cover. But i dont have a hard disk with my 360 to download it. Crap! I have to buy a hard disk to play the free extra packs. Why dont they include it with the dvd. damn!

Why do all good action games last for three days only..

Ideah!!! I ll have to increase the difficulty level before i start. That will hold my reins.