The Life of Shaииoи

YAY for escaping to Queensland Tomorrow. No work for 5 days, Nice and warm, 1 billion places to take photos. Were driving up so my PSP is loaded with music and Ghost in the Shell EPS, and GAMES, to occupy me on the way up, DS is charged and waiting… Hopefully with both of them fully charged ill have the 10 hrs drive covered!

In other news….. TF2 BETA OMFG…. all I can say is…. , I SO can’t wait until October for it to come out.

Anyway I’ll probably make a post when I get settled in up in Queensland.

But Until then… /toddles off to play more beta…

I probably should blog something considerable, but really can’t be arsed at the moment.

Went to the Drags at WSID on Saturday they were pretty sweet as usual, I’ll have a post about them… like… Tomorrow I guess. I gave my 400D a fairly good run taking about 350 photos in total, most came out pretty good. Gave me a real chance to get to know the settings and things alot better.

FragFest SpringLAN is this Saturday, really looking forward to catching up with some gaming buddies this weekend, plus its another decent photo op , and a chance to play some games I haven’t played in months.

Spose I should crash now, work tomorrow… Joy again…

Well I’ve been holding off posting my impressions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl for a while now, mainly so I could give it a good run through instead of playing it for 5 mins and saying “its outdated and plays shit”. Like many people I’ve been waiting for this game since I first saw it in Atomic all those moons ago. Currently in game I’m sitting at the Save point at the entrance to the Chernobyl NPP so I’m fairly far along in the story. So I’ll get right into it.

Packaging: I have to post a picture of the Collectors tin + Contents cause its just sexy. The collectors edition came with A Tin, The game itself, Bonus Content disc, Map of the Zone, S.T.A.L.K.E.R Survival guide, bonus Downloadable maps and skins and the Instruction manual.

Gameplay: FPS with some RPG elements appeals greatly to me . Exploring is fun, but has its perils aka getting irradiated from straying into a patch of radiation and anomaly’s that will rip you in half or pound you to death and even fry your insides! There are however a few things I have noticed:

• The AI for the zombies being extremely accurate, considering they are infact zombies…
• The AI at the beginning of the game is alot stronger and more accurate than you are for quite a while until you progress a little further into the game and get some more powerful weapons. Though learning how to control weapons such as the assualt rifles would counter this.
• AI Allies push you into the line of fire if your blocking there path behind cover
• In the Bar theres this one guy that wont fucking shut up about giving you information. which I found EXTREMELY annoying

Overall I think the Human AI is a little over powered. Apart from that I feel the gameplay is fairly solid most of the time.

Graphics: My GPU is dying so I couldn’t experiance the most from the lighting and graphics systems, little bit of a downer but thats just my machine, even at 1600×1200 and med - high settings the game looks excellent in my opinion.

Engine: I’m totally in love with the game engine, Thunderstorms random weather patterns, rain, wind, its all just awesome . Thunderstorms and weather patterns changing did tend to lag me out a little bit at times but I suspect that is also my computer dying.

In Summary: I’ve really enjoyed S.T.A.L.K.E.R for the most part, accept for some little frustrations from getting lost, or eaten, or dying, and its actually a game thats managed to hold my attention for more than 15 minutes which lately, and as many of you may know, has been kinda hard, And yes I got to Pripyat and the ferris wheel STILL freaks me out…

Overall id probably give it a 7/10 but the game does have a bit of a unfinished feel to certain parts. That being said don’t just blow it off and say “meh” go play it and put a few good hours into it and you might be surprised.

FragFest Autumn LAN was yesterday and I had a Blast! Aside from some issues that have arisen with my Computer, I have a suspicion that my Mobo or RAM are on there way out, but thats a story for another day..

CSS Tournament:

After giving up my Spot in Section 9, Yes I know I’m a Traitor , I assembled a random team called “tDc.| Team Discovery Channel” (Yes I am aware I stole the Name ) and we managed to win 2 out of 4 games, which was pretty good . Not too sure how Section 9 went ill have to find out from Twitch . Three of our games were shoutcast by GameStah, ill have Links to Demo’s and Shoutcasts for those interested soon.

Results for tDc.|

• vs Section 9: 16 - 6 (Win)
• vs Pwnage Pandas: 16 - 12 (Win)
• vs Remember the Name: 1 - 16 (thrashed )
• vs GermanZ: 3 - 16 - (thrashed again )

Section 9 and Pwnage Panda’s were both fairly hard fought matches, but the matches vs GermanZ and Remember the Name we got thrashed pretty bad, We had a lot of fun thats all that really mattered, I’d like to thank my team which consisted of: DarkNexus, Lance, Po! and t@arget pr@actice for a great effort . And also props to the Shoutcaster for getting my name wrong, I had a good laugh at his reply.

The Rest of the Day:

After some fairly lengthy CSS play, Samantha and I had a couple of rounds at Smash Bro’s on the GameCube, and I’m happy to say well, She pwned me and some randoms with Pikachu a few times which was pretty fun, We had a rather interesting game of DOTA (Warcraft 3), not fully understanding how it worked I rage quit after getting owned 20 times in a row :S , Bit of Warcraft 3, during which I got Pwned again by Samantha after the other guy we were playing with quit. I managed to go the whole LAN not playing BF2 , Watched some Top Gear, generally loitered abit, all in all it was a good day. Oh and we got Free Red Bull which always rocks .

Props to Dean and all the FragFest Staff for another great LAN!

Downloads:

• Photos
• CSS Demos & Shoutcats @ FragFest

Until Next time!

Well the day I’ve been waiting for ever since I first saw images of S.T.A.L.K.E.R in Atomic has come…

Today S.T.A.L.K.E.R was announced as GOLD! After so long and so many disappointing delays the day I and so many others who have dreamed of having that S.T.A.L.K.E.R box in our hands will finally come, were looking at a 23rd release in Australia and I’m glad to say (as I did in this post) my copy of the collectors edition is safely pre-ordered .

Not much longer now, until I’m drooling into a bucket over the real thing instead of Screenshots and Videos . *Drools some more*

Well this is for the people who say they spend hours and hours playing World of Warcraft for the “Social” aspects of the game..

“WoW: The most antisocial way to be social”

Just think about it, your really being social by hiding away and playing WoW for hours and hours a day, you’ve picked the most anti-social way to be social I could possibly think of… Being locked in a room slowly turning a pale white isn’t social last time I checked.

The Outside World: Beware of the Sun, Wolves and old people with Sticks…

So get up, walk out side and meet people, even pick up the phone once in a while, you might be pleasantly surprised, that’s if you don’t get eaten alive by wolves or the sun doesn’t melt your face…

Well heres my usual plug for FragFest, FragFest Autumn LAN is coming up on the 10th of March, I’ll be attending once again with Twitch and the other Section 9 members , possibly playing some tournaments but im not to sure about that just yet… Might get a team going in CSS.

So yeah as per usual go sign up or ill beat you with a fish.

• FragFest
• Autumn LAN Signup
• FragFest Forums

Head over to the FragFest site for more infomation.

Well S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl is due for release early next month and well, im addicted again, I’m hoping to get into the BETA but I have my doubts. I know is like 3 years late or what ever but who cares. My Collectors Edition is safely pre-ordered at EB Games in Penrith .

Living breathing world that continues when your not playing, Day / Night weather cycles, Freedom of movement, real world locations around the Chernobyl area, an arsenal of modifiable weapons, ammunition and equipment, hell what more could you want!? Generic Shooter my ass.

Still the screenshot of the Ferris wheel freaks me out… So in Short (cause I really do Suck at previews). Get it or ill slap you silly… Whiteshadow will too….

Well as you can see I haven’t really updated in about a week, not a great deal has been happening, Still looking for work and getting no where…. very depressive, I got a new Printer, not exciting really but its all that’s really happened in the last week .

Been listening to a crap load of music lately, Ive been enjoying some Juno Reactor (Thanks to Phin) lately, really enjoying it and it hits my lil soft spot for trancey music, looking into getting a couple of there albums when i get some cash…. Back into my old 90’s alternative mood again mostly.

FragFest Autumn LAN is coming up in just under a month on the 10th, I might be going not 100 percent sure atm, finances will have the final say in that matter, more than likely will end up going as its a good opportunity to play some games all day and catch up with some Section9 members . I’ll talk you into coming yet Scunner *shakes fist* hehe. I’m not too sure weather or not I’ll play in any tournaments this LAN, only time will tell. Theres talk on the FragFest forums of the RedBull girls being there, hope they are free RedBull FTW!! My love toy Twitch will be there .

Well thats pretty much it for the momment, I’m off to be bored and listen to more music and apply for some jobs.

Well SummerLAN is over, and I have to say the biggest highlight was meeting Hollowpoint. and WhiteShadow, and spending some time with Samantha . It was much cooler than the NovemberLAN, which I have to say was a like sitting in a Sauna playing Battlefield :S . By about 12 there was no seating left which I havent seen in any past FF that ive been to, Kudo’s to the FragFest Staff for another perfect power / network setup , I FINALLY resloved my intranet issue, a DNS that kept reseting itself wast the problem. Not a hitch power or network wise all day (other than Samantha’s dodgy network card and subsequent dodgy technician (aka Me)). We had a large Section 9 turn out this LAN with: Hollowpoint., WhiteShadow, mr.Twitch, WhiteFox, Tiny, Element and My Self attending. Also a mate of mine Bernadino and his Brother also attended (and also pugged in our BF2 team ).

Tournament Wise:

Im not too sure how we went in the CSS tournament, came in 3rd I think, Good work to Twitch, Hollowpoint, WhiteFox Tiny and Element! BF2 was a bit of a annoyance, set to start at 4pm on paper and didnt actually get underway till 7pm, and to top it of because of the delays we ended up playing 12 v 12 with randoms that were alittle to interested in TK’ing each other for Aircraft than capping flags :S . We ended up being Carrier raped for the remainder of the round as USMC, bit of a let down but were not gonna dwell on it.

Photos:

I actually managed to get a few good photo’s this time .