mattdarkzero

A weekend full of laughter, discovery, mystery, suspence and romance!
Ok, not really a time filled with romance, but that other stuff was certainly in there!

First of all, train journeys to and from birmingham were looong... What was meant to be a 2 hour journey either way ended up being closer to 3 hours. So after finally getting home last night, i was just exhausted.

Anyways, all that bloody rain aside, I had a pretty good weekend, saturday was a bit of a rush at first, as I was late into london, and had about 5 people in the line for underground tickets who must have been slow in the head. These people either took ages to figure out what they wanted (Generally a day-ticket) or were moaning about the price to get somewhere.

Was a bit of a rush to and from the hotel to get to the restaurant in time (Looked like it was just in time too) Just wanna thank lunarkittenlj for being able to squeeze me in at the last minute there. And thanks to granny_gertrude and the others who informed me of the magical tale of Jack.

Avenue Q was fantastic, I dont think that I can remember that last time I laughed so much that it hurt, plus it seemed like we all saw something that we would like to try and make/use for a cosplay/skit. So thanks to khaoskomix for the ticket!

Spoke with a few people over drinks afterwards (Including Kaka, who ive never really spoken to before outside of breif snippets after taking a picture at expo or something) then headed back to the hotel, where I was unable to sleep till some time after 3, due to some bastards over the road having a rooftop party...

Sunday was generally a clamer affair. Met up with arctic_ryn (Who I happened to meet at Avenue Q by complete chance) zanarkandangel and drowned_panda for a chat followed by an exploration of the piccadilly shops, before heading to Okawari again for a meal with other peeps (Oh well, change to try something else there :D )

Was straight to the hotel after that, hung out with tom and amy for a while before gunstarvixen got back herself and then it was off to the ball!

The ball itself was a mixed bag, got down on the dancefloor a few times, but only had one proper dance. Though I blame that partly at not being able to find some people at times, and the fact that they still felt the need to have as little music as possible that would be appropriate for ballroom dancing... (Lets hope Amecon still has the ball next year)
The acts were hit and miss. I pretty much drowned out the band, thought that guy singing went from great to ok. The disney section was pretty fun, but the arial dance definately had to be the highlight.
Also, I dont know about anyone else, but during the 'burlesque' dance (Last years was a far better) While most other people were either staring and/or drooling, I was too busy giggling because I saw the guy dressed as bender near the front of the dance floor, and was thinking it was be brilliant if he he put a little extra work in to make the eyes pop-out to 'zoom in'

Had a few snippets of convo with Louise and Kerry back at the hotel, and managed to get a decent bit of sleep.

Monday itself was fairly brief, had breakfast with Louise, Joe, ailsa_chan, Rachel and her bf (Who's name I didnt catch) before hopiing on the underground and quickly stopping back in piccadilly to but a jacket that I saw before heading home.

So in all, a generally good weekend. Met some new people, laughed my ass off, got dressed up and had a bit of a dance. Just a matter of if I would go next year or not, seeing how it didnt really change from last year.

Best of all, while Im still feeling pain, I haveonly a few days before im off to derby for another weekend of fun! I'm gonna be aching all over by new years...

You know when you have a weekend planned out for yourself, but everything seems to just come apart for no reason?  That seemed to happen to me this weekend...

Saturday was going to be a long weekend out.  Look round the shops, get some christmas shopping done, along with picking up dragonage and then have a nice meal at woktastic.
Sunday was going to be a little more quiet, but still fun, maybe a little dragonage, before sitting back to watch wrestlemania 25 (I just suddenly got back into wrestling for some reason)

Saturday was just a dull blur...  Found out that DragonAge doesnt come out on the PS3 for another 2 weeks, so my plans for when I get back home have already gone under.  Plus, it didnt seem to matter what store I went to, none of them had the items I was looking for as presents.
Had to skip on woktastic, because whatever I had for lunch didnt sit so well, forcing me to ignore dinner entirely.  But on the way back, I figured I'd check my local Asda for my presents, as I had seen them there a few weeks before (Ironicly before I considered them as presents) only to find they were gone again...
I also got pissed off to no end in there, but that's going to be saved for tomorrow in my latest rant against 'normality'

So I get home, earlier then I had hoped, and just spent the day watching bones.  My eye twitching as I could hear my brother playing Dragonage on the 360.  :-(

Sunday wasnt too bad, though I ended up going out again to the local sainsburys, where I was able to pick up one of my presents.  Took me ages to get round to watching the wrestling though, after half-forgetting the bed needed to be changed, and that my room needed a good tidy (Along with my manga needing yet another re-arrange)
So by the time I started watching it, it was already like 4pm and I still needed to get in the shower...

This just seemed to be one of those weekends when nothing goes how you want.

• The opening section, having to haul your own shot and bloody body out of a train as it hangs off a cliff.
• Having a shoot-out on a moving train, trying to aim your shots as the train itself turns along the track.
• Paitiently, yet tensly waiting for the right moment to take out a guard via stealth, knowing that an error on my part can blow my cover.
• Running and gunning for your life to esace a building as it collapses from the ground up.
• Getting to admire the amazing scenery in some of the more wide-open parts of the game.
• The movie-like quality of the story, voice-talent and character.

K, so I decided to check on how the waiting list is going for Minamicon right now.
At the moment, I am number 78 in the waiting lists.  And there are 77 people yet to pay on the members list...

Yeah, Im not liking my chances here... Damnit!  I wanna go to Minami at least once!

Edit: 76 yet to pay...

Figured I'd keep myself busy during my breaks by writing my thoughts down on some of the games ive been playing lately, save me from constantly checking my e-mails.

So I finally got down to playing Brutal Legend this weekend, I'd really been looking forward to it after seeing all the videos and playing the demo.  Its a shame then, that everything they've shown off of the game and what you see in the demo, doesnt prepare you for the tedious bother that the game becomes.

Its starts off as a good game, the music, the simple-yet-effective fighting system, a pretty sound script with some nice audio comedy from Jack Black.  Starting off in the temple of Ormagodan (The God of Metal) before building up your car and driving the hell out of there before getting to what I would describe as your first boss-battle in the game, before finishing the opening off with you speeding down a a bridge as it collapses all around you.
My thoughts at this time - "Fucking Awesome!"

Its after this that the game really opens up, adding in the sandbox mechanic (The so called 'Open-World' effect, but I'll get to that another time) to allow you to explore this land of rock, an island covered in monuments such as a huge statue of a guitar, or a field of statues all giving the 'rock' gesture to the sky.
Of course at this time, theres not alot to do, I could either go to the marker on the screen to continue to story, or I can just explore the island to find its extras, such as hidden plynths to unlock new songs or bound statues to increase your health and power.

One benefit though, is that as soon as you get to this point, you can already go meet the 'Guardian of Metal'.  And who else to play him, but Ozzy Osbourne, who seems to fit the part perfectly, as the old rambling rocker who lives for the old days, when the world was full of music.

Things arent so bad for the next few missions.  You gain some allies (Such as the Headbangers, who act like your standard troops) and learn about how you can give them commands, simple things like Defend, Follow or, my fave, Attack anything in that general direction.
The next mission improves on this slightly, giving you access to team attacks, when in the case of headbangers, they will form a mosh-pit around you, dealing damage to anyone who gets too close.
My thoughts at this time - "Nice, its got a bit of a overlord feel here"

Its not too long after this that you have assembled a whole party of rockers, which is when things really start to change.  With a small army realy to fight, your thrown into a tutori-battle, where the game expects you to take on a small army with just a few nods on how to control and order your own.  While this battle isnt difficult, it certainly throws you off, as you are suddenly forced to rely on your troops, rather then just killing everything yourself, and unfortunately, it hits the same tedium from then on.

Apart from a few missions to show off new troops and their abilities, most of the main story forces you to do these battles, where it just throws groups of enemies at you and stops you from going solo.
For instance, to create troops, you need fans.  Fans come from geysers, which you build merchandise booths around to wing them over.  But alot of the time, these geysers will be covered by a huge leech which you have to attack to remove it.  But by attack it, I mean have your troops attack it, because if you try attack it, it immediatly throws you back.
On top of this, a few battles in, you come across a new opposing army, but the troops they have can take a hell of a beating before you kill them, forcing you to constantly summon more and more troops of your own, who quickly get decimated.
My thoughts at this time - "What the hell happened to the game I was enjoying?"

This was when I stopped, the battles were becoming far from engaging or fun, plus I knew that there was the main army in the game still to come, which probably meant even stronger enemies...
The game was just starting to become tedious, even the side missions were just the same thing over and over.  'Ambush' the enemy, 'Defend' from the enemy, Kill so many things.

If this game had stuck to something more like an action game, maybe it would have worked, but it quickly turned into a poorly disguised, unbalanced RTS, and an RTS that isnt all that good.
Plus, like its technical predocessor Psychonaughts, it suffers from the 'Tim Shafer' difficulty curve, where things start easy, but will suddenly spike up to difficult.

Unfortunatly, unless some huge game comes out and turns out to be absoloutely dire, Brutal Legend seems to have my spot for most dissapointing game of 09...

Oh well, at least I have Uncharted 2 (Will get onto that tomorrow)

Right, just got back from birmingham, where I went to see fightstar live.

All I can say is that they were fucking awesome!  Despite Charlies slight throat-infection, they were on top-form, and I loved every moment of it.
Plus I got to see a few interesting new bands, and should say if your a fan of fightstar, keep your ears open for a band called prego.

Went to trade in the old PS3, as selling it on ebay was going to hell (Seems no-one is interested in playing PS2 games on their PS3 then...) only when I got to the store, it turned out that a cable I never used for the console (And thus never took out of the box) was missing, so they wouldnt take it, meaning I had to return home to take the cable from the new ps3 box and stuff that in there.  The extra journeys wracking up almost 2 hours of time that I could have spent doing things I wanted to.

Toiled over with this for the last few days now, as I know theres a good oppertunity for it.

But I finally got the courage and made my mind up.  Im gonna ask her out for a drink and/or a bite to eat, regardless of what the outcome may be!
To hell with worry!  For once, Im going to take the risk!

Stupid assholes, how is this my fault when i wasnt even in when it was supposed to happen. 

How thick do you have to be to not spot your own laptop in a room you were in just 3 days ago?  Even better, dont own up to the fact you didnt actually look around and pretend someone must have moved it or that I hid it from you gecause I must have somehow came to spite you in the weekend I was away, all because I'm the one who found it within seconds of entering the room, in such an obvious spot, yet it must be a blind spot to anyone else who went and looked in there.  Yeah, because nobody leaves things ontop of a fucking table...

Also, if your going to book a projector, dont book it a lesson before you need it, then moan because someone who did book it ahead of time is using it, claiming you had booked it ages ago.  I can see what time you sent to booking order, so dont fucking lie to me on that!  How about giving a proper lesson for once without having to rely solely on your laptop and a powerpoint presentation that you make the kids copy, or is it too much work to give these kids a proper education?

I just want a break from all these idiotic, out-for-themselves, dont-give-a-rats-ass, good-for-nothing, bastards...
I think I need a hug...