Hey everybody! Sorry for such a content dry-spell. I would love to say I was busy, but I was really just playing videogames, watching TV, and working. I guess that's why I''m on this site to begin with, though. Anyways, I just posted my second review. It's about the game Ratcht & Clank: Size Matters. I know I said I would do one on Renegade Squadron, but I couldn't get the multiplayer to work for me. I figured that if I couldn't do a total review of every aspect of the game, then why even review it? My R&C review is pretty short, but I feel like I covered everything pretty well, and gave a pretty balanced opinion.

Some of you (by that I mean none of you) may have noticed I took Oblivion off of my playing list. One of the reasons I did that is what I like to call short term gaming span. I can only play the same game for about a month straight before I switch to another game. Another reason is that I became a vampire, and there's a glitch in the game that won't let me get the cure for vampirism. So, basically, the player I worked on for 2 weeks is now a vampire forever, which sucks a lot of the fun out of the game.

I'm not making any promises for what's next for me, but I know I probably won't be getting any new games until Christmas, so it probably won't be a review. Now I feel like whenever a say something won't happen here, it does. I WON'T EVER BECOME A MILLIONAIRE!

~xRPGx

"Ignorance is Bliss, until you're on fire."

I was planning on writing an editorial over the weekend, I really was! Then I pick up Oblivion... wow. What an amazing game. The gameplay just rocks, and stealing stuff is the most fun thing I've done in the game (so far). But it's very long. Took me the entire weekend just to complete the main story line of the Shivering Isles expansion pack. So anyways, that's what I'm doing right now. Playing Oblivion.

What's my next move? I'm going to put off writing an editorial and write another review. This one's going to be about Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron. I'm not giving a time table for this one (look how the last one turned out) but it will get done. My pre-review impressions are an 8.2, but thanks to Gamespot's stupid review system that'll get dropped to an 8. The game itself is really goo, but it's just left me with a really empty feeling inside. I don't know... anybody else ever get that? I have yet to try out the multiplayer, because you need some stupid account that you apparently can't create in the game. When did simple convinience of grab-and-go multiplayer get taken over by GameSpy. Stupid monopolies. Great originality in the name, too. The Game_______ hasn't been used 20 million times already, has it? (No offence to Gamespot) [/rant]

If you have any questions/comments/concerns, come find me in Oblivion. I'll be fighting off weird Gargoyle looking things that shoot fire. (Seriously, what is up with those?)

~xRPGx

(Note: My original title for this entry was "Sucked into the gates of Oblivion", but apparently you can't use "suck" in the title of a blog entry! Stupid censorship)

Hello fellow gamespoteans... what exactly are we called? I'll go with nerds. Hello fellow nerds! Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I've been super busy. I was working crew for our school play, and this week was tech week. Tech week is where you run the show over and over for a week getting all of the tech stuff together and cleaning up the acting. So, what it really means, is you stay in the theater from after school until 7:30 every night until the show weekend. This, and homework, has taken up a lot of my time.

Fear not, though. I should have a new blog post coming out some time this weekend. And guess what? It won't be me ranting about things that annoy me and things everyone agrees with :o. This post will mark my first ever editorial! I'm pretty excited about it. Right now I'm in the prewriting stages, and I know it's not going to be Soapbox worthy. But it'll be something, right? Just a side track really quick: everybody should join the "Thinking Outside the Box Union". I've been to busy to participate in it, but I can tell this will be big.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been considering getting a DS. I feel like the system would be interesting; there are some good games. Being able to play Nintendo games again would be nice. And the price of $130 is a steal by my standards. But, like most of Nintendo now, I get a big mass market casual gaming feel to this system. Am I right? My current view is "hinting" my parents to get me one for Christmas, but I'm still not sure. What's you're opinion?

Anyways, I just got 3 new games. Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition, Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadren, and Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters. Lots of colons and money, I know, but their worth it. Gotta run, Oblivion is calling!

~xRPGx

This blog entry is just to plug my first review ever. In the review, I look into Skate. Obviously, since this is my first review, and my writing skills are limited, don't expect too much from this. There were two things that inspired me to review this game. One, the fact that all of the people I'm tracking are great writers, and they sort of put the idea in the back of my head. Secondly, all of the crappy reviews that get slapped on to Gamespot like it's a message board. Really short reviews or review that just say "TH1S GAME R0CK$" 99 times irritate me. By the fluency of this post, you can tell I'm pretty burnt out as far as writing goes. And I have all of my homework to do for tomorrow :/

Please read the review and leave feedback for it! I honestly don't care if you recommend the review or hate it, but the feedback will really help me if I ever do another review. Thanks!

~xRPGx

Sorry my blog has become weekly instead of, well, something more frequent. I really just don't have any free time at any time besides the weekends. I also realize that my blog should have at least something to do with videogames everyday, so I'll get better about that. Side note: I'm looking for a good screen recording program the will also record audio outputed from an internet browser or speaker. I was thinking of making a gameplay video of some game just to test things out. If you know a program that can do this, please contact me. Thanks!

The Good

Mercenaries 2

For those of you who don't know what's going on, and are too lazy to click a link, the game Mercenaries 2 has been put off until Q1 2008, further back from it's originally planed Q4 2007 release.

Part of me thinks this is a really great decision. Ever since I found out that this sequel was going to come out, I have been so pumped for it. The developers having more time to perfect the game will just make it that much better. Also, a later release date means it won't have to compete with all of the other major sequels that are coming out this holidays season. The only major release coming out around that time is the new Grand Theft Auto game, and they probably won't be coming out in the same month. If the sales for this game are good, could we see a Mercenaries 3? Please?!?!

Boring cl@sses

Boring cl@sses are never just boring cl@sses for me. They are also study halls, blog brainstorming sessions, percussion lessons, and some high-quality space-out time. All of that time is very useful if you don't do whatever the teacher is. :P

The Bad

Mercenaries 2

Ever since I found out that this sequal was going to come out, I have been so pumped for it. So having to wait until next year really bums me out. There are only so many times you can replay Mercs 1.

Lawyer Speak

This kind of talking irritates me more than anything else, even more than l33t speak. I bet some of you don't know what I'm talking abou. It's when some people take the phrase "You can't punch anybody" and make it "Physical contact with any peer, teacher, or administrator will result in heavy consequences". Our school rules are all writen this way, and it's awful. I feel like they're trying to keep it a secret, it's just so hard to understand. For example, this is the entry for cheating: "Cheating: Using, submitting, or attempting to obtain data or answers dishonestly, by deceit, of by means other than those authorized by the teacher." Catch any of that? And just so you know, I realize why they have to talk like that, but they also say that we have to read this crap. Not surprisingly, nobody does.

I'd like to share one more thing with you before I continue ranting. And that's what I call "Rule el Diablo". This is the rule: "Any action a student takes to influct physical contact may be sonsidered fighting - including, but not limited to, self-defence." Wait, what?! They're basically saying that if you are getting beaten up by somebody, you're best bet is the fedal position and screaming "Help! Help!" until a teacher comes and tries to break it up. If that doesn't work, they say to ask them to hit you on the arm, so you hopefully won't cause permanent damage. If all else fails, they say that screaming "Mommy! Mommy!" and peeing yourself will make the other fighters laugh so hard, you might be able to escape. And yes, I know they have this rule so that there won't be a "Who started it?" battle, but I still think it's a bad rule.

skate.

I just got the game today, and I've played it for about 3 1/2 hours. I've been pretty disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay rocks, but here are 3 things that bug me about the game, from least annoying to most.

1) Flipping. This may seem small, but flipping is so annoying in this game. I barely know the controls to flipping. I think you have to move your body forward and grab your board at the same time. But I also have no idea what the conditions are in order to be able to flip. This is supposed to be a skating simulator, right? Well, in real life, you're able to attempt a flip wherever you want, no matter how stupid, right? So why do the conditions have to be just right in order to even attempt a flip in this game. This control almost seems broken to me. If you think I'm doing the flip wrong and you own the game, please let me know how to do a flip.

2) The production value. I can honestly say I've never heard of any of the skaters in this game before. I'm not an avid fan of skating, but I've watched enough X-games to know some big names if I see some. But I see none. Also, all of the voice acting in this game seems shallow, uninspired, and just plain pointless.

3) Traveling. Traveling in this game pisses me off more than it does in any other game. It takes for friggin' ever. Sometimes it takes me a whole minute just to get from the street to the sidewalk. Even if it took 1 millisecond, you still have to find out how to get to where you're going. Even if you know that, it still takes for ever to get there. They try to save this fact by having a subway system, but the subways seem to be exactly where you don't need them to be, and it's just so pointless to take them unless you're going to the other end of the map.

The Ugly

"Your Mom!"

No, I'm not saying that your mom is ugly. I'm saying that the phrase "Your mom!" is so stupid it's beyond words. Please, people of Gamespot, get behind me on this. Cease this phrase's existence so we can live a happier life.

>Hope to have a good entry again next week!

>xRPGx

Well, it's been a week since my last post, so here's another one. :)

The Good

Music

Music is really the only thing that keeps me from going insane in a world full of stupidity and stress. I don't know about you, but whenever I am listening to music, it's much more difficult for me to think about what's going wrong with my life. It's just me, and the music.

That philosophy applies even more so to when I'm playing drumset. Whenever I play, it's just me, the set, and the music. The way playing zones me out is really cool, and works very nicely to eliminate my stress and sometimes anger. It helps that the instrument involves hitting things as hard as you can. And when I combine listening to music and playing music (by playing along to songs), it's just the ultimate feeling for me.

I don't really need a drumset to drum either. I can sub out drums for tables, books, any surfaces, other people, knees, and other miscellaneous body parts. I can also sub out sticks for pencils, fingers, hands, invisible sticks, or any other thing that's stick-like or stick-ish. I'm pretty sure some people in my cla.sses think I'm mentally insane, but I don't really care. If I stopped drumming to make it seem like I wasn't crazy, I would go crazy, and then they would know I was crazy.

The Bad

Grades

I don't have too much beef with school this week, everything has been going fine. I'm just pissed at grades. Progress reports come out next week, which means I'm getting a "pre-progress report" progress report from just about every teacher. And if you think I can avoid having my parents know about my grades, you're dead wrong, because my mom gets my progress reports through e-mail. So now I'm really stressed that my mom will yell at me about my grades, even though there's only 1 grade I'm really stressing about. In my family, you're expected to get all A's, so when you have A A B B B C on you're progress report, you don't expect it to go over well. Let's just hope I'm still alive by the end of the weekend.

The Ugly

"Inspirational" Posters

You know the one's you always saw in Middle School? The ones like "YOU are responsible for YOUR actions" and "One person can change the world!" and all that other crap? I really have a deep hatred for those. I started to get annoyed by them in 5th grade, and then angry at them in 7th grade, and then downright pissed at them 8th grade.

First of all, who are you planning to inspire or change the life of with these posters? Kids have already heard of this stuff in elementary school, and we've either chosen to listen to it, or, in most cases, brush it off like the shallow garbage it is. Have a room with every square inch of wall covered in these things is redundant and stupid. The space would be better used for posters that help you learn the topic at hand, not make you gag. If you had informative posters on the wall, kids could at least learn something by spacing out during a boring cla.ss

Now, why bring this up? Well, since I got the hell out of Middle School, and ran as far away as I possibly could, I though I was done with all of that nonsense. And I was, for the most part. But some teachers still have them up, and, even though they are not as abundant as they were in the demon school (Jr. High), they are equally annoying. The worst ones, I have to say, are the ones in my Spanish cla.ss They are equally as awful, but only in Spanish. And I'm in Spanish 1, which means I can't read them yet. What's more annoying than an inspirational poster? One you can't even read. I know if I could read it I would think "Why is this here, isn't this a high school?", but I don't know what it says, so I can't prove for sure if it's inspirational. It may not sound like much, and this may all be whiplash from my already present anger of being in Spanish. This stuff doesn't even deserve three paragraphs, and yet, here they are.

Hypocrites

I hate people who agree with something until it applies to them, and then it's a whole different story. I try to be careful of what I form opinions about, just because of this. I try to think "If this were to happen to me, then how would I think?" before making a definite statement. The only thing I can think of for this would be homophobia. A great example, I know. I think homophobia is just awful, stupid, and very ignorant. But, if I found out one of my friends was gay would I treat them any different? I'd like to think not, just because I would catch myself if I ever did. The thing is, though, you can never be too sure just how anybody will react in certain situations, even yourself. I suggest you all try thinking about yourself in some sort of similar situation, and how you may react to it. It really gets your mind working, and it can really help you understand how other people feel. Now I sound like an inspirational poster. You know what? Just do whatever you want. There, is that better?

>xRPGx

This is something I hope will be recurring, if I have enough stuff to talk about.

Good

Puzzle Quest for the PSP

This game rocks. It really does. It takes all of the components of a Cl.assic RPG, and frames it around Bejeweled's gameplay. This may sound unoriginal, but the gameply is actually really addictive, and the storyline isn't half bad. It has it's share of glitches, but with such a great concept, they're easy to overlook.

Boredom

You may think that boredom is a bad thing, but it's actually great. If we were never bored, then we wouldn't need video games. And then we wouln't have any videogames, or this website. Without boredom, all we would do is go to school, go home, do our homework, stare into space, and sleep. We would be robots. And not the good kind of robots like in the Jetsons that do household chores, but the bad kind that want to turn on the human race and destroy to world. Not that I think about that sort of thing...

Spell Check

I run in a long line of horrible spellers, so spell check rocks. Period.

Moderates

I honestly think moderates have some kind of gift that they should share with the world. That gift is one of impartiality. They can look at a topic, get facts from both sides of that topic, and then give an unbiased opinion about that topic. That's the musical equivalent of finding someone born with perfect pitch. I can honestly say that I have neither of those things. There are just some things I feel too passionately about to give an opinion that doesn't have RANT written all over it.And I know I don't have perfect pitch, just ask anybody who's heard me sing.

I think we should be hearing a lot more from moderates. We hear a lot of crap from Conservatives and, with all of the debates they're having, we hear even more crap from Liberals. The truth in everything tends to lie somewhere in the middle. And who's in the middle of everything? I wonder...

Bad

No sequal to Beyond Good and Evil

Every since the game's release in 2003, fans have wanted nothing more than a sequal to this game. And why not? The gameplay was exciting and at points intense, the graphics were good and could be great on next-gen consoles, and of course, the plotline was movie-worthy. I mean, the plot had everything! Aliens, government corruption, and pig/human things. Awesome! So why not create a sequal? The rumor is that this game was supposed to be a trilogy, but low sales on the game shot down the production. That rumor has never been confirmed, but it's just enough to kill me, knowing we were just that close.

Ugly

School

School sucks no matter who you are. It sucks for the teachers, it sucks for the kids, and it really sucks for anybody on any Board of Education. What's the difference between all of these people, though? It's that students don't get paid.

Stupidity

I hate stupidity. I think it's our world's number 1 issue. If we could get rid of stupidity, all of our problems would just go away. Global Warming? People would realize that renewable energy is our future, and everybody should have it. Education? That's an easy one, no one would be stupid. Wars? Well, wars aren't really cause by stupidity. You may think so, but they're really not. The only problem is stupidity is the hardest one to fix out of that list, so if we just settled all of the other ones, maybe we would magically be less stupid.

I am by no means saying that only some people are stupid. Just yesterday I lost my planner, accidentally deleted a blog entry, and totally bombed my drum lesson. Those things were stupid. Everybody's stupid, it's just a matter of how much you listen to your inner idiot that really defines your stupidity.

People with no sense of humer

I truely and utterly hate these people. They always take things literally and seem to be allergic to there own laughter. At the beginning of the school year I tend to track down these people, and then never talk to them, ever. It's not that they're bad people, I just find jokes funny and tend to laugh at them even if they're not that funny, just because it's humor. I especially do this when I'm at school, just because it's the only thing that keeps me from slamming my pen into the first teaacher that gives me homework. I do hope you realize that that was a joke. People with no sense of humor would go "That's terrible!" and then they think I'm a phyco for the rest of the year. Another strategy I have to avoid those people.

>Thanks to the couple of people who actually care to hear me rant!

>xRPGx

Sorry I haven't had a decent blog post in over a week. School and work have just worn me out. I'll get around to blogging eventually, but right now all of the life has just been sucked out of me. Thanks for understanding.

Alright, this post isn't anything special, just found this hilarious.

I am now depressed. Those following this series know that I like ranting about stupid people, but I hate stupid people. The last two parts of this series have been about Californian Idiots (seriously, their leader is an actor). That seems like a great name for a band...

Anyways, this rant isn't about the people of California (although it will be again, one of these days). It's about the people of the UK. I've always considered them to be a smarter, thinner US. But there is one bad thing about the UK: Conservatives. (duh duh duh...)

Now before I say anything else, I need to talk with Conservatives. I don't hate you, I hate what you stand for. Not having gay marrige legal in this country is bull. And please, let video games be, for ONCE!!!

Anyways, the new target of my rage is David Cameron. He made a speech trying to get elected into something, but that's not important. What is important is that he's a conservative. Making a polictical speech. Trying to get elected. All three are equally annoying. He starts off his speech by addressing the rising crime rate in the UK. That's a great place to start, considering that it's probably a hot topic in the UK. He says that if elected, he would give the police more power by not having them file forms before questioning a citizen. My guess is that's a little controversial, but okay, a step in the right direction. He also says he would reform all current alchohal licencing laws. Again, not sure if that'll help too much, but I don't know the drunken crime rate in the UK, so who am I to say? Later in his speech he says that pop culture is a major factor in promoting crime. Umm... you're starting downhill Mr. Cameron. I can see where this is going. I wouldn't say it's a major Don't you think things like gangs and violence experience at childhood might have something to do with anything? No? Okay then... Then he says something stupid.

"The companies which make music videos, films and computer games have a social responsibility not to promote casual violence, the gang culture, and the degradation of women."

I'm not going to say anything for a little bit, so please, do let that sink in. You may not understand what he's saying, or you may not even believe he's saying it, so feel free to read it a couple of times though. Just don't read it over 10 times, or your brain will explode.

All done? Okay. First of all, no, they don't. Their responsibilty is to make a kick-ass game/video/movie that people can enjoy. Not to babysit you/our culture! I think that some people probably get their game/video/movie ideas from pop culture and what people do, not the other way around. I also think that you, Mr. Cameron, have a responsibility to change pop culture, not the media creaters. People don't look at these projects and go "Wow, I'ld love to do that in real life". And if some people do say that, they don't need anything to inspire them.

Second of all, please shut up! This goes the politicians and, mainly, stupid people/conservatives everywhere. To politicians: I'm tired of hearing the same reply to everything over and over again. The democrats have had over 40 debates this electoral season. 40!!! I bet you could tape one of them, play it to a political analyst, and they would know which one it was. I just shows you that: "no matter who's asking the questions, no matter what the questions are, the answers will always be the same." (that's a direct quote from my first blog entry). And stupid people/conservatives. We know you think stupid stuff, but if that stupid stuff stays in your head, no one will know you're stupid. It's when you say the stupid stuff, like "I think people choose to be gay or "I think video games are a source of violence in our society", that people know you're an idiot.

Wow I just took half an hour to write that... weird. My head hurts even more now, and I think I'm grinding my teeth...