WELCOME

Welcome to Spring!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:08:31 GMT

You're probably wondering why I have a picture of a snowy garden when the title has "Spring" on it. Well let me tell you, that picture is a photo of my garden on Sunday 6th April 2008. Yes it's meant to be SPRING and yet THIS is the weather we get in England! I shouldn't be complaining really as it's now Thursday 24th April and the sun is starting to blaze through...but I just thought I'd share that with you!

Life Update

Andy came back home for a 3 week Easter holiday; since I was unable to take time off for him (since Mark, my boss, was on holiday and I’m the only one capable of covering for him) I only got to see him at the weekend. Despite seeing each other for 3 weekends we didn’t get up to much as one weekend I was ill; we mainly chilled at each others houses, took a work one day when the weather was lovely, played some games, just chilling really. I plan to hopefully visit him at uni one weekend in May or June as I haven’t seen his uni since October 2006. When he next comes home it’ll be a few days after my birthday (June 16^th) and a few days before I go on holiday! Yes despite not being fully recovered from my previous trip overseas I’m off to Greece for one week in June. I’m a little frightened actually, I’m still ‘on edge’ since my last holiday and since I know that even the WATER is lethal in Greece, I’m a little anxious. I’m sure once I’m out there lying by the pool side in the glorious sun I’ll be fine but when even your mother is concerned about you going (all parents are when their child goes on holiday abroad without for the first time), you can’t help but feel more so yourself.

I saw Landa during the back holiday Easter weekend; I picked her up from her house, drove to Bluewater for a meal and some shopping. Whilst I was at her home (that I hadn’t been to in ages) I got re-acquainted with her parents. I saw her mum just before Christmas 2006 (!) but her dad I haven’t since…I can’t remember! Their English has gotten far (they’re from Yucaslavia), they both seemed well and they looked happy to see me (always a bonus - pleasing parents). At Bluewater it was quite busy (expected as it was a bank holiday), so we decided against the cinema as the queue was so freaking long! We had a nice Chinese lunch at Amoy and browsed some shops. I didn’t buy anything but Landa bought some jewellery and other random crap. We also had a coffee before I dropped her home. It's always nice to see Landa, even if our catch ups tend to be short. I plan to take her out after her exams have finished in May - maybe after that we can see each other more.

I took both Tuesday 15^th and Wednesday 16^th off in April to celebrate my mum’s birthday! Her big day was Tuesday but I took the following day off as mum and Daniel were both on Easter holidays and I wanted to spend more time with them. The evening before, Monday after work, we went into London for dinner out. After a walk looking at all the restaurants in Leister square we settled on ‘Rock Garden’. It’s quite pretentious but the food was lovely! I had sea bass with Ratatouille (which I’ve never had before) and I ate every little bit of it! The fruit drinks they provide are nice too.

On mum’s actual birthday she had a cold so didn’t feel too great, but we took a nice drive on the lovely sunny day to Faringham. It's about a 10 minute drive from my old 6th for college (North West Kent, Dartford), we has lunch at the Lion Hotel (food was ok, didn't have what I originally wanted) and then took a gentle stroll around the area 'cos the weather was lovely.

Farningham looks like a 'country side' sort fo town; there's lots of greenery, small old houses, streams and very narrow roads! It looks lively in the sushine and a perfect place to settle down since it's so homely and quiet - but I knew as soon as the weather turned icy I would be cursing whoever built those roads!

We went back home to rest *cough play computer games cough* and then went out again for dinner at the Laughing Buddha (a Chinese restaurant near where I live). We always like this restaurant but we don’t go it very often, so it was nice to come back to it.

The next day was not as easy going as we had to take care of my littlest brothers; Robert and Oliver. First we did a bit of shopping (the boys were well behaved) and then we drove to Wilmington (again near my college) for a lunch out. The food was nice (gammon and home made chips) and although the weather wasn't as nice as yesturday and the outside play area was quite scruffy and falling apart - we had a laugh. I usually don't spend much time with them apart from when they pop round to say hi with Brian, Daniel usually sees them every weekend. But I really enjoyed that day as I was able to actually feel like their sister; I played football with Robbie as Daniel ordered the food, I taught Ollie how to swing himself (I had a go myself to feed my inner child), I had more energy that day that I've had in the past year! It made a nice change. Later on we came home, me and Daniel taught the boys how to play the wii. We played Mario Kart (with the wii wheel) and Wii sports, a few tears kicked off when Robbie lost and wanted a wii for his own when he had to leave. Overall it was a good day.

What’s the status on my on-going health problems you ask? Well…

I’ve started my new diet that I mentioned in my previous blog; I’ve cut out wheat, gluten and dairy. It’s been hard, I’ve had my ups and downs but the benefits do out weigh what I’ve given up. First of; my stomach has been a LOT better, I still had my bad days/moments but I have more energy, I can do more, I don’t have to lie down as much after eating whilst before I was always in pain after eating, plus I’ve lost some weight! The bad side is that I didn’t realise so much stuff had gluten and wheat in them! Dairy was not so bad as I was originally allergic to dairy when I was about 8 so I’m used to not eating dairy by now, but the gluten…its in bread, pasta, pastry…so I can’t eat Yorkshire puddings (love them with roasts), pizza, pita bread with kebabs, burgers beer-battered or bread crumbed fish (so its a nightmare when trying to order a take away), cakes, garlic bread…so some of my favourite things! And although I’ve bought some gluten-free stuff from Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s – most of them don’t substitute the real thing. I’ll just be glad when I’m fully recovered!

As for the ‘high liver function’ I mentioned in my previous entry; I had another blood test since then and although it’s still higher than the level it should be, it’s decreased since my last reading. The doctor said it might be because some people’s livers are fattier than others; it could also be raised if I’ve gained any weight lately (which I have). He wants to keep an eye on it just in case and have another test in 6 months. Several weeks later I got a letter stating that the last test result from my blood came through and apparently my copper levels are high…so now he wants ANOTHER blood test and a 24-hour urine sample…sigh…when will this ever end?

Now let’s move onto a NEW FEATURE on my blog!

Basically, I wanted to ‘punch’ up my blog a little more, at the moment it’s just my life, a brief introduction and reviews.

I often have random thoughts that I wish to share, typed “top 10” lists or comparison stuff that, eventually, get abandoned or get archived onto my personal crap. So I decided to include a new section to cover all of them; so let’s welcome my new section…’Feature of the Blog!’ Ok, as a title it’s as crappy as my other ones, but like I said before if you can think of something better be my guest! Let’s open my first feature with a TOP 5...(I've got something better for next time I promise!)

Feature of the Blog

TOP 5 GAMES I WANT FOR THE WII VIRTUAL CONSOLE

Title: Jewel Master

Platform: Sega Mega Drive

Genre: Action, Platform

Synopsis: In the fantasy land of Mythgard the people lived in peace until Jardine, the demon king, came to overthrow the world. There were twelve Jewel Masters who brought together their rings of power consisting of Fire, Water, Earth, and Soul, but their battle failed and only four masters survived. Knowing of their ultimate demise, they passed their souls into the twelve now-lost rings, hoping that one day a chosen one would find them and use their combined strength to take one final stand against Jardine.

Jewel Master was never immensely popular, but it was quite a unique concept, it required thought on which rings to use to battle enemies and since there are multiple combinations there’s no telling how many ways there are to defeat this game. It has many “platform” game qualities mixed with well-thought out combat. The graphics were not the best on the system yet had good production values.

I never actually defeated this game (from what I can remember), I think I kept getting to the last level then die from lack of health no many what I tired. The game is known for getting increasingly difficult as you progress. Mum eventually sold the game when she couldn’t finish it either, and despite our best efforts – we haven’t been unable to find this game again in any second hand shops.

It would be great if it was made available on the Wii Virtual Console, as it would save the trouble of me finding it and it would be a cool addition to the virtual console library.

Title: Gods

Platform: Sega Mega Drive, SNES, Atari ST

Genre: Platformer, Action

Synopsis: Who would have thought that a man would be so foolish or so daring as to accept a challenge set down by the Gods? And yet one came forward to claim the right to test his skills and strengths against a city so legendary its name alone struck fear in the hearts of all who heard it spoken.

Like Jewel Master above, Gods was not a ground breaking title, although it has a fan page (much more than what I could find on Jewel Master) it was not the first title that spring to people minds when they words “Sega Mega Drive/Genesis” were said. It was a dark game in nature, the colours in the game favoured black brown and grey, the cover was mainly black and the main character looked like a very muscular gladiator. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good game, it was, from what I can remember. It was a platform game by nature but the main character had to battle some very threatening looking enemies.

There are plenty of platform games currently on the Wii Virtual Console and many more to come from the Sega Mega Drive games library, but this is one title that shouldn’t be skipped.

Title: Soleil (a.k.a. Ragnacenty, Crusader of Centy)

Platform: Sega Mega Drive

Genre: Action RPG

Synopsis: The story centers on Corona, a boy who has just turned 14 years of age. It is time for him to inherit his father's sword and fight the "monsters" that threaten the human race's very existence, attaining animals to help his quest along the way.

First of, I still have the original copy of this title for the Sega Mega Drive, so the reason for wanting it on the virtual console is not that. I mainly want it for insurance (in case my original copy packs up one day) and for others to experience this great game.

Along side Phantasy Star 3, this was one of the first RPGs I played and loved. At the time I was unaware but nowadays this game is compared to the series “Legend of Zelda”, mainly for the control style and the fact that the lead has a sword, as far as I’m aware nothing else. The game play involves Corona sword fighting his enemies and having animals enchanted his sword with their own special abilities. The story is interesting, the game itself is short and easy but it’s a great game overall. I want this available to download so other can experience this title as well, if Wonderboy in Monster World is available why not this game?

Just to note; Soleil is the European title, Crusader of Centy is the American title and Ragnacenty is the Japanese title.

Title: Wiz ‘n’ Liz

Platform: Sega Mega Drive, Amiga

Genre: Platform, Side scrolling, puzzle

Synopsis: Wiz and Liz are two wizards who cast spells dumping various items into their gigantic cauldron. Watch them zip across the screen, gathering all the items they can and battle big bosses to save the wabbits (bunny rabbits).

This game is quite hard to describe as it has no set plot and it has many elements from various different game genres. Its side scrolling, it involves various puzzles, battling various large bosses, casting spells, entering various worlds, etc, etc. The game is full of life and colour, despite being hard to describe no one can deny that it’s not cute, I mean come on “wabbits”, all together now: “aaaawwwww”….

There’s plenty in this game to do in your first run, there are also many difficulty settings to keep you coming back for more. It’s a very unique put together title that belongs on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console, besides this game was made by the same team who produced “Lemmings”, how can you say no?

Title: Clock Tower (The First Fear)

Platform: SNES, PC, Playstation, WonderSwan

Genre: Survival Horror

Synopsis: When Jennifer and 3 of her friends are adopted by the Barrows family, they are taken to a strange mansion known as “Clock Tower”. When their adoptive mother, Mary, goes missing within the house, Jennifer sets out to look for her. She then encounters scissorman, a demonic child carrying a huge pair of scissors with every intention to kill her and her friends. Can Jennifer escape alive?

Clock Tower is known for being one of the pioneers for survival horror games; it’s also one of the first to incorporate multiple endings. Clock Tower was first released on the SNES back in 1995; it was later ported to the other consoles after it became very popular; however it was never released outside of Japan. Its sequels have been released worldwide since then, two on the Playstation and the newest one on the PS2. The original game has been fan translated and released as a downloadable ROM for others to experience but I don’t trust ROMs so I haven’t had a chance to experience this title myself.

I know Nintendo are known for being “family friendly” but there’s a big enough fan base for “Clock Tower” to be a big download hit on the virtual console if given the chance. It’s unlike anything that’s available on the virtual console channel at the moment and it’s also unlike any other survival horror game currently avaliable (except for Haunting Ground, which is now out of print).

The only difficulty is that the series was originally owned by Human Entertainment, the company folded in 1999, and although the 4^th Clock Tower game (Known as Clock Tower 3) was released by Capcom, I don’t know if they own the rights to the first game as well. I hope so, as I would love to play Clock Tower one day in the future.

The WahWah Views

This week we journey back into the Survival Horror catalogue and look into the sequel to 2004's title; Obscure. You can see my review for Obscure here. Remember you can also see more of my reviews on my amazon profile.

Title: Obscure 2 (a.k.a Obscure: The Aftermath)

Genre: Survival Horror

Platform: Playstation 2, PC, Wii

Certificate: 16+

Rating: 4/5

I haven’t been into survival horror for very long, 6 months at most, but from what I’ve seen so far I’ve highly enjoyed. Most of the survival horror titles I’ve played have been more psychological and centred on impacting fear through that, rather than gruesome monsters and heavy shooting. I bought a second hand copy of Obscure simply out of curiosity after reading a review highly recommending it, thought it was short and had its faults, I did still enjoy it somewhat and it was enough to make me pick up a copy of the sequel. Despite fearing it would be a copy of its predecessor I am glad to say that not only did I enjoy it more that Obscure 1 but am highly looking forward to another sequel (if they have plans to make one).

Obscure 2 takes place 2 years after the prequel, the 6 survivors of the awful events that happened at Leafmore High are now moving on and living their own lives, taking medication to suppress the mutation that affected them during the first game. Now at college, it seems as if history is about to repeat itself as strange purple flowers have started sprouting around the campus, sending students on a ‘high’ and eventually turn them into monsters! Accompanied by new allies, can the survivors of Leafmore High survive once more?

Obscure 2’s plot, like Obscure, is based upon teen horror/slasher movies, so there’s plenty of cheese and horror to go around. Obscure’s plot was quite predictable and lacking at the best of times but Obscure 2 is greatly improved. The beginning is very strong, although the middle part fades slightly it picks up with an unexpected twist towards the climax and the ending leaves a cliffhanger in hopes it’ll return for Obscure 3.

Obscure 2 makes references to drugs, sex, death and suicide – so it’s darker than its predecessor.

You have 8 characters to venture against the darkness with, 3 who are survivors from Obscure 1. The new characters include the Asian twins Mei and Jun who are computer game geeks, Amy who’s also know as ‘Miss Wet T-Shirt of the Month’ and Corey, who is a skater. All characters have their own unique abilities that are all put to use to progress in the game; such as Mei ability to hack into computers, Amy’s skill at decrypting and Sven’s ultra strength to move heavy objects. Most abilities are just used for puzzle solving, this sadly takes away some of the creative fun as some abilities in the previous instalment could be used for combat and other purposes, however they are well performed with the co-operative game play.

The characters have much more of a personality than the previous title; several times they’ll chat amongst themselves as you progress in the game, mostly it’s just chit-chat but other times they offer clues if you’re not sure where to go next. Some of the scripted lines are quite amusing and add to the joy this title gives.

Graphics are detailed enough to see the blood, monsters and gore!

Screenshot courtesy of Eurogamer

The graphics are quite luscious and detailed, the characters are nicely designed and all weapons are quite distinguishable. The characters movements are still quite stiff (especially noticeable when climbing or moving objects) and it’s not without its glitches, but it’s a definite improvement on the previous instalment.

Most character voices are performed well enough, cheesy, but considering the plot is cheesy in itself, the voices fit the game, although some of the returning characters sound quite different to their older counterparts. The music is slightly more prominent than Obscure 1 and it is more fitting to the surroundings, it’s still obvious that the composer was inspired by the likes of Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill Composer) but he adds his own spin to the horror genre.

The mainly selling point of this and the previous game is the 2 player co-operative mode. In any stage during the game, a second player can plug in a second remote and control the second character. Like the previous game most of the time it works very well, controls are easy to get used to and whenever one player goes into another room the other player automatically joins them.

If however you prefer to face the darkness alone, the second character is controlled by A.I. Luckily the computer controlled character handily sees and attacks enemies that you haven’t seen yet or whilst you’re solving a puzzle. But they like to stick very close to your character and in many situations when you have to backtrack they end up getting in the way a lot of the time.

In Obscure 2 acting together is even more vital as many situations and puzzles require you switch between characters such as one to pull the other up onto a high place to escape enemies, this helped built up many “tension” parts of the game and provided more for your friend playing rather than just “following the leader”.

The camera is, unfortunately, poor for both solo and 2 player game modes. The camera likes to stick right behind player one’s arse or pick the worse possible angle in certain rooms. You’re only given a small amount of control over it with the right analogue stick and whatever changes you do make, it doesn’t stick. Sad to say, you’ll the fighting more with the camera than with the enemies themselves!

A great addition to this title is the extensive use of puzzles, apart from shooting mutated monsters this title features some of the most exciting and varied puzzles, I haven’t seen so many since my old PC days when Sierra was at it’s high with titles such as Shivers and King’s Quest. They range from putting pieces of a jigsaw together (such as torn up maps), to word games (used in Mei’s computer hacking ability) and lock picking (Obscure just had you hold down a button, now you must actually work the pin through the lock!). Others include working the more acrobatic characters up onto high platforms and get them safely across to the other side of the room. There’s enough in the game to break up all the battles yet doesn’t overwhelm those who can’t stand to think with their heads neither. They were easily my favourite part of this title. If anything this should be built up more if there was an Obscure 3.

One of my favourite puzzles; Mei's hacking into computers

Screenshot courtesy of Eurogamer

Apart from the puzzles the only factor that makes this title slightly challenging is the lack of healing items and ammo. The previous game became increasingly difficult towards the end as healing items became rare and ammo was hard to find. This has been slightly altered in Obscure 2; healing items will appear in rooms if you happen to have a low supply – handy when you need it the most, not so much if you prefer to store some in your inventory for future boss battles. As for the ammo, it’s still scarce and hard to come by, but more weapons are available in this title, so if one gun is out of ammo you won’t be left to fight with your bare hands.

Like Obscure, the sequel incorporates melee and projectile combat in order to defeat the monsters that go bump in the night, you’ll be saying hello again to the bat and hockey stick, as well as enjoy the new additions such as crossbows and chainsaws. This somewhat takes away the ‘realism’ from the game, as Obscure mainly used items that could be found inside a school. Although Obscure 2 visits more areas, I highly doubt a hospital would keep a shot gun inside a broom closet!

An element that I miss from Obscure is the use of light; the enemy is highly photosensitive in both Obscure 1 & 2, in the prequel the students had to tape flash lights to their guns and aim the light at the enemy in order to kill the harmful creatures. Not only was this very unique and clever but it added some strategy to the combat that other gun based games lack. I was very sad to find that this game play element did not return for Obscure 2, the combat is now purely aim and attack. It’s good news for those who prefer just to get straight down to the killing but it’s such a shame that an element that made Obscure stand out was taken away in the next instalment.

Another element that was prominent in its prequel yet not in this title is replay value. Obscure had multiple difficulty levels, new weapons, costumes and even music videos to unlock. However Obscure 2 has nothing. Bugger all, zilch. No rewards for completing the game. So unless you have a friend to bring along to play every once in a while you won’t be returning to this title in a hurry once you’ve finished it.

Other faults include being able to hit your partner (a stupid feature to add as the computer controlled character is almost always in your way, although it’s funny when the character speaks of annoyance when being hit), the short life span (although longer than Obscure, still not enough for most gamers) and the irritating saving system; which involves observing flowers scattered throughout the game, however they disappear once you’ve use it once. This becomes a problem as the game has many levels that your characters will visit more than once, so after your first visit you’ll have to wait longer to save when you next drop by. It’s even more infuriating as in Obscure 2, if any of your two characters controlling dies you have to start from where you last saved it, quite different to Obscure 1 where you could continue on.

One last error is that no explanation is given to the characters from the first game that fail to appear in Obscure 2, although there is a hidden cut scene you can unlock towards the end of the game that features them – it raises more questions than answers any, the way to unlock it is not obvious and you can easily complete the game without knowing its there.

Overall this is a very worthy sequel, highly enjoyable and great for both single players and for those who wish to bring on a friend. If you’ve never played the first game I recommend getting a copy before purchasing this, if it’s just for the 2 player action then you can probably get away with just reading the character bios to get the jest of Obscure 1 plot. It’s a very good buy, especially when a brand new copy is only £20 – it’s worth every penny!

Song of the Blog

First of all let me apologise for last week as none of the links I used wanted to play the Utada song longer than 24 hours, so I gave up finding another link after a week. But the new album 'Heart Station' is out now and diffiently worth a listen! You can now purchase via CDJapan.co.jp or online from itunes!

This week I have something different. Its not a new track, nor a J-pop track, it's good ol Brit pop! It's from one of my favourite albums of all time and from a highly talented band.

Song Title: Parklife

Artist: Blur

Album: Parklife, The Best Of

Genre: Brit Pop, Rock

Year: 1994

Download: Here

Lyrics:

Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as (parklife)
And morning soup can be avoided if you take a route straight through what is known as
(parklife)
John's got brewers droop he gets intimidated by the dirty pigeons
They love a bit of it (parklife)
Who's that gut lord marching? You should cut down on your porklife mate get some exercise!

[Chorus]
ALL THE PEOPLE
SO MANY PEOPLE
THEY ALL GO HAND IN HAND
HAND IN HAND THROUGH THEIR PARKLIFE

Know what I mean?

I get up when I want except on Wednesdays when I get rudely awakened by the dustmen
(Parklife)
I put my trousers on, have a cup of tea and I think about leaving the house (parklife)
I feed the pigeons I sometimes feed the sparrows too it gives me a sense of enormous well being (parklife)
And then I'm happy for the rest of the day safe in the knowledge there will always be a bit
Of my heart devoted to it (parklife)

[Chorus]

Parklife (parklife)
Parklife (parklife)

It's got nothing to do with vorsprung durch technic you know

Parklife (parklife)
And it's not about you joggers who go round and round and round
Parklife (parklife)

[Chorus x 2]

Thank you for stopping by!

This is me, over and out, and off to enjoy the sushine (while it lasts)!!!

Heart Station for Sinners

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:43:34 GMT

Konichi'Wa Everyone!

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for my previous entry, due to my very long review section most of my personal touches were removed. Though my life update was passed onto my live journal (which I've updated cosmetically, check it out), my entry still came across came across as blunt and rushed! It won't be the case with this and hopefully future entries, so my apologises for my previous update. Now that's out of the way...

I've noticed an increase in popularity on MSN spaces, at first I thought it was just passing interest but every week I seem to get friend request from a random persone, my blog gets about 15 - 40 views per day and several comments have been sumitted to some of my earlier entries. Thank you for those who've dropped by and expressed their views whilst here. Much appriciated! Who knows? MSN spaces may be the next 'big thing' for social based sites? Well it's had a few updates lately, you never know.

Anyways, enough blabber - let's get on with it shall we?

Life Update

Not much has really changed since my last entry, some events have occured and things has changed but nothing to exciting. My life update will be small today.

My Valentine's Day wasn't exactly romantic, not that I planned it to be after Andy told me that a friend of his has died and his was on Valentines day. Oddly enough I didn't have the heart to say; "Hey after we bury your dead friend can we have a romantic meal afterwards?". I still saw him on VDay, I took the day off to be supportive and attend the wake (as I thought it would be rude to attend the funeral when I hardly knew the guy and did not know his family). The wake took place at a pub nearby me, luckily I manage to get a parking space. We were only there for about an hour (as Andy said he is not very good at wakes), mainly it was him catching up with friends he hadn't seen since secondary school. Afterwards we drove back to his house, it was an easy quiet day but he appriciated that I took the day off to be with him. Oddly enough this was my first experience with funerals/wakes in my lifetime, hopefully my next will not be close.

My Anniversary Weekend took place between 16th - 18th February, I took Monday off (my actual anniversary day) to spend with Andy whilst he was home for the week. We went to the cinema on Saturday and saw Sweeney Todd as we are both Tim Burton fans. I knew it was a musical but I didn't realise it was a black comedy too, I found myself laughing the whole way through. The singing was brilliant (though some songs were repeated too much) and the actors did a hell of a job. It was very enjoyable indeed. He spent the nigth round mine (first in a while) and Sunday we mainly chilled at home, had Sunday roast and then I spent the night at his place. Sadly I suddenly felt ill on my actual aniverary day and had to cut our plans short, I felt pretty much weak and fragile for the rest of the week. But on Saturday (before he went back to uni) we relaxed at his home and it was a much better day.

We've now been going out for 3 years! It's been a struggle the past year but I can safely say that we've had some great times too, my illness has been a test for the both of us but we've become stronger because of it.

On February 29th, my mum met up with a friend of hers that she hadn't seen in 15 years! Her name is Debbie, they've been friends since secondary school, I met up with mum after school whilst they were catching up over drinks. I hadn't met Debbie before but she seemed very nice and made me think about my friends deelpy. I've hardly seen them since I feel ill, and even before then I took time for granted. For example George, he now lives in Maidstone and I said before I'll drive and visit him one day yet it has never come to pass. Another example is Rhiannon, a friend since primary school who now lives near Manchester and yet I haven't seen her in years! I hope once I'm fully recovered I'll get to catch up with all my friends and in the future, the friendships will still shine like Debbie and my mums.

Now what about my health eh? Noticed that I haven't mentioned it much in this entry yet?

Well, I'm better than I was in my previous entry, several things have changed since then that have helped me physically and mentally. To start off, during January and February I kept getting asked to do studio for Toonattik, but I keep feeling weak, ill, depressed and saw no light at the end of the tunnel. At one point I got so wound up that I told Becky (Senior Producer of Toonattik) that I couldn't do it anymore. I got quite tearful (unfortunetly) despite not wanting to make a scene, she understood and got someone to cover for me. It was then that I had enough, I went back to the private doctor at Blackheath hospital to ask if there was anything he could do to help me. He put me back on a set of tablets to take at night and recommened I got a blood test to rule out anything else wrong with me. I returned a month later to find that my liver function was quite high, this was noticed last year when I first got sick but was not looked into deeply as they assumed it was a one-off thing. I've had to had another blood test (a fasting one, which I hate as you're weak enough from lack of food and when bloods bring drawn you feel even worse!) which I don't got the results back for another couple of weeks. I'm sure everything will be ok, if not, I'll work my way through it, I've gotten this far since I got sick a year ago on 31st March, I don't plan to give up now!

In addition, my mum found a book called; "The Eat Right Diet", it's basically a book of dieting centered on blood types. Apparently different blood types react differently to different types of food, so what one group of food could be benefical to one blood type can prove to be the opposite in another. My mother read that 'gluten' is bad for type blood 'O', especially those with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), as it sezises up the bowels. Well I'm blood type O, and have IBS. It was hard, but I decided to give up gluten and dairy (as I'm allergic anyway). As I'm typing this, it's been about a 3 weeks since I gave up gluten and a month and a half without dairy, 2 weeks ago I started feeling much better. Sure I still get bad days and I'm not bouncy with energy 24/7. But I've noticed a change, a shift towards being healthy, something that hasn't occured since Christmas. It's been difficult as some of my gluten free products haven't exactly been the best tasting things ever, and I have to bring my own lunch in as gluten-free doesn't apply to the cafes/sandwich bars/restaurants near my work, however it's all for the greater good.

The WahWah Views

The main reason my last blog entry was so tight was because my review section was so big! Origianlly I was going to only post one review to compensate, but I got a new game via Amy (a game 1 week before it's offical release! - a first in my blog) and decided to include it here as well! As promised none of them are a survival horror (yay!) unfortunetly one is not a happy review. Let's start on a high shall we? First up; a review of the up and coming Sega Superstars Tennis!

Title: Sega Superstars Tennis

Genre: Party, Sports

Platform: Wii, DS, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox360

Certificate: 7+

Rating: 4/5

“Sega Superstars Tennis” is basically the next level in Wii Sports Tennis, it takes all the best bits, removes away the bad, adds many more elements and mixes it with huge cast of colourful Sega characters.

You have a total of 16 characters (8 need to be unlocked) to choose from; the characters range from the popular Sonic the Hedgehog, to the newly revived NiGHTS and ‘hasn’t been seen in a decade’ Alex Kidd. If you’ve ever played a Sega game or owned a Sega console in your life, you’ll be very happy to see many elements dedicated to those characters. Such as Sonic’s Green Hill Zone court has the television with a ring inside, the chao cheering from the side lines and Sonic Adventure 2 music playing in the background. You can tell Sega had its fans at heart whilst developing this game.

The gameplay is very well thought out as you have much more control over the ball and racket compared to Wii Sports. Instead of just moving the remote to register a hit (like in Wii Sports) you have a variety of moves that allow you to input more strategy into the game and it feels more life like.

In addition you have the ‘superstar’ moves, whilst playing tennis a gold star is found underneath your character; if you perform a good move or progressively win it starts to glow. When it glows you can press the A + B buttons to activate ‘superstar’ mode. In this mode your character can perform moves that make it trickier for you opponent to win; such as Amigo summons maracas on the other side to distract the opponent. This feature can be turned off if you prefer just to play straight forward tennis.

You can play with either the classic controller, the wii remote sideways (both use buttons and the d-pad to play), the wii remote held upwards (like you use in Wii Sports) and with the nunchuck. Each input method has its own advantages; for example with just the wii remote you only control the racket and the computer moves the character for you, with the nunchuck attached you have complete control over the character’s movements and the tennis racket.

The graphics are good; the character designs and level layouts are nicely portrayed, though they don’t reach the level of ‘Mario & Sonic at the Olympics’ or ‘Super Mario Galaxy’, they’re better than most wii titles.

The graphics and details capture the essences of the original levels, such as Green Hill Zone

There are 4 different modes of game play; Match mode is basically the same structure as Wii Sports Tennis, you can play with/against the computer or friends in singles or doubles game. Tournament mode allows you to enter a competition, again with the computer or your mates to see who the best tennis player is. The Games section has multiple mini games, each representing a different Sega game. You can play by yourself or with friends to beat the high score.

Superstars mode is where single players will get the most out of this game; you have 16 areas all representing a different Sega game, only 6 are open at first. These include Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Monkey Ball and Golden Axe. In each world you have 10 missions to complete, all involving themes from each Sega game using tennis to complete each mission. You are graded on how well you perform and some missions unlock new worlds, characters and songs from each game’s soundtrack. Most of the missions are very well thought out and range from quite easy to very challenging. This includes beating a horde of zombies from ‘House of the Dead’ (called ‘Curien Mansion’ in this game) with tennis balls, or aiming coloured balls onto graffiti on the other side of the “Jet Set Radio” court.

However there are a few missions that feel very out of place, the best example is the Sonic based missions where you simply move your character to collect rings on the field whilst avoiding enemy attacks. Despite the game giving you instructions on how to serve and the character a tennis racket – you don’t use it at all. If I wanted to move Sonic around collecting rings and dodging enemies I would’ve purchase Sonic the Hedgehog on the virtual console! Fortunately these types of games only count for a small portion of the missions; the majority are clever and highly enjoyable.

The major element that drags this game from a 5 star to a 4 is the computer AI. It’s very unpredictable in an unfortunate way, one minute the computer will play tennis like Serena Williams, the next it will stand there gawking at the ball as it flies past them. This problem doesn’t lie in the Match or Tournament mode as you can adjust the settings, it mainly lies in ‘Superstar’ mode, so some missions involving computer controlled characters can be a doodle and others can be too challenging for new players.

The last fault of this title is that the Wii version is the only version that lacks online gaming. So if online gaming is vital to you, I recommend you pick an alternative version of this game.

Overall this is a well put together game and enjoyable for a wide range of gamers. Not only it is quite enjoyable for both single gamers and those with many mates; it has many high-quality features that make this title very worth while. If you want a new challenge that you cannot get in Wii Sports, this game offers it. Or if you dreamed about having your favourite Sega characters together in one disc, you won’t be disappointed.

Title: The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night

Genre: Platform, Action

Platform: Playstation 2, Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance

Certificate: 7+

Rating: 1.5/5

Let me paint you a picture; you’ve just re-loaded from a checkpoint for what seems like the millionth time. You check your ‘upgrade’ screen; all breath powers are good to go, you check your health/magic bars, full up to the brim. Now you are ready to take on the enemy! You climb up the hill for the Nth time and kill 2 warthogs that come charging at you. You continue upwards to kill 3 apes and 2 more hogs; you manage to survive (barely). Now at the top of the hill, ready to face the 9 apes that attacked you relentlessly and killed you before, you manage (with a bit of luck) to come out of the battle, this time a winner. Just when you think it’s time for another check point, or at least a breather from the enemies, no, another dozen apes come flying in. Along with their ‘daddy’, a huge ape that, with previous experience, can kill a fully healed Spyro in 2 hits. With no means of healing yourself or re-filling your magic, the apes destroy Spyro in a matter of seconds. You are revived to the spot you started at (again) and Sparx suddenly says; “Hay, try to not to die again!”. With high blood pressure, built up anger and completely frustrated, the only logical response is to shout at the TV screen and say; “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK I’VE BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST 2 HOURS?!”

“The Eternal Night” is the sequel to the first ‘Legend of Spyro’ title; “A New Beginning”. The ‘Legend of Spyro’ is a trilogy that ‘revises’ the character Spyro, from a cute child-friendly dragon to a combat, all action hero. The new games were met with mixed reaction, from fans they cried out for the old Spyro while game reviewers welcomed the new change and platform-based game play. Though I loved Spyro since he was introduced on the Playstation and hold the games quite highly today, the ‘formula’ of gem collecting and cheesy cartoon-ish baddies was starting to wear thin by the time he came to the PS2. When ‘A New Beginning’ was released I was hesitant, missing the lovable innocent dragon, but I thought the first instalment in the ‘Legend of Spyro’ was quite enjoyable. Nothing ground breaking but I’d hoped that this game would be the starting platform onto something greater. I eagerly waited for the sequel, I added ‘Eternal Night’ onto my Christmas list, I insert the disc in my PS2, and by the end of it I was ready to smash it into tiny pieces!

‘The Eternal Night’ picks up directly where ‘A New Beginning’ ends; Spyro has lost all of his powers after the battle with Cynder and stopping the Dark Master from resurrecting. But The Dark Master isn’t about to give up yet, as the Ape King has his eyes set on ‘The Well of Souls’ and plans to resurrect him on the night of Eternal Darkness. Can Spyro regain his powers and stop the ape king?

The controls are a direct copy as the previous instalment; jump, glide and attacks are allocated to the same buttons. The game relies heavily on combat to complete the game, you have a choice of either melee attacks or a choice of 4 elemental breaths; fire, ice, electricity and earth. However unlike the previous game, the elemental attacks have undergone a small change. Instead of just having one button to breath a fire and another to unleash a special attack (that wasn’t much different from the other elementals) they now all have their own specialities. For example Spyro can now turn into an electric whirlwind or unleash an ‘earth bubble’ that can send the enemies flying! Or Spyro can perform an ice-effused tail whip that temporarily slows down enemies. So basically combat isn’t as repetitive as before, it still dominates the game but finding new ways to dispose of enemies is somewhat fun and creative.

Or, if the elementals aren’t enough for you, ‘Eternal Night’ introduces the new ability, ‘Dragon Time’. It’s basically the now over-used ‘bullet time’ ability, after pressing the button to activate it you have a limited time in which the world around Spyro slows down considerably. This ability is mainly to help Spyro progress in the game by slowing down fast platforms that he has to reach, but it also helps as back up in some boss battles and enemy encounters.

Despite the controls being lifted from ‘A New Beginning’ a problem has somehow generated from development; Spyro can perform a ‘double jump’ just like before, which helps Spyro glide from a greater height. However the space you get to press the appropriate button twice in order to active it is very small. After pressing once, you have not even a second to react and press again; otherwise Spyro will start to glide at a lower height, often resulting in not reaching the platform required and trying again. Once the problem is picked up you learn to work around it but it’s extremely frustrating to compensate for this when you’d rather be concentrating on playing and having fun, rather than what’s going on with the buttons!

Like the prequel, Spyro cannot increase his maximum health or magic throughout the game, but you can increase Spyro’s breath power via the upgrade menu which uses blue gems picked up from enemies and crystals. Though blue gems are harder to come by as the blue crystals are hidden for most of the game and are not always given when enemies are defeated. Therefore increasing Spyro’s breath powers is not as easy as the previous game, often leaving a weak Spyro up against much stronger enemies.

The enemies are ugly, strong and very annoying

The graphics have not improved since ‘A New Beginning’, at all. Sure some of Spyro’s fury attacks and moves are performed in another way so they now look different but in no way does this game push the PS2’s boundaries. The character designs have been re-used, level layouts have been re-structured but offer no variation and the same colour palette has been used from the previous instalment. Considering now that the PS2 is at the end of its life cycle, Krome Studios were incredibly lazy in this department.

Like pretty much everything else from this title, the music score re-uses many tracks from the first game. A few new ones have been composed (such as the sweeping out-of-place ballad sung during the credits) but there’s nothing there that will strike you and it doesn’t bring anything to the game, if ‘Eternal Night’ was silent throughout you probably wouldn’t notice the difference. The SFX, again recycled from ‘A New Beginning’, are clear enough and do the job required.

Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman return to reprise their roles of Spyro and Ignitus respectively, also Billy West (voice of Fry in Futurama) and Martin Jarvis join the cast, despite being ‘big name actors’ they don’t live up to their fame. It’s quite clear that the actors had little direction; several times I’m sure that a particular line in the script was meant to be sarcastic, yet Elijah Wood says the line in an upbeat friendly tone – no sarcasm to be heard. Compared to their performances in the previous game, the actors were obviously not warming up to this instalment, to be fair though, the script wasn't exactly a piece of art.

Where most of the frustration from this game comes from is the ridiculous difficulty level!

Sure, the puzzles and concept is very easy to grasp and combat is basically button bashing, that’s not the problem. The problem lies with the battles themselves and that the unforgiving controls can lead to so many character deaths!

I cannot begin to count how many times Spyro was absurdly out numbered in battle, or had to face bosses that were capable of killing Spyro in literally 2 hits! It’s just unbelievable; it’s almost like Krome Studios at first intended for Spyro to be ultra powerful and have all his powers from the first game, therefore having enemies’ ultra powerful too. But then changed their minds about Spyro towards the end of development and forgot about the enemies!

The situation explained in my opening paragraph is one in many, due to this, player’s will most likely abuse “Dragon Time” to stay alive or pray that they’ll get enough fury gems to perform the ultra powerful attack and finish the battle quickly. To add insult to injury, Spyro can be harmed while being flung across the fielded by the previous enemy’s attack, while enemies become invincible when they are knocked down, only to get back up again with increased health.

This is not helped with the lack of check points. The previous game, when Spyro died, it restarted the player to the beginning of the section he happened to have died in. This helped with some of the tougher baddies as Spyro was able simply to tackle them straight away instead of ploughing through the level leading up to them. However in ‘The Eternal Night’, check points are far and few, combining with unfair battles and fragile controls can lead players to repeat the same sections many times over. Another annoyance is certain check points occur just before a cut scene, if you happen to die you have to watch the cut scene AGAIN! It gives no option to skip so you end up watching the same scene over and over again if you happen to be facing a difficult boss! It’s completely unnecessary and ridiculous!

I’ve played computer games for a very long time, sure some titles are quite difficult and yet are still enjoyable, and no game should be completely dismissed due to difficulty. However when the difficulty is raised so high that defeating enemies relies more on luck than skill, and your character is killed numerous times for no good reason, the fun dies very quickly. Especially when the rest of the game is no different to its older counterpart, only the most loyal Spyro fans will see this game to the end.

The title is aimed at children, the age rating is 7+, yet I cannot begin to imagine how a 7 year old would be able to complete this game without wanting to scream out in frustration continuously.

Despite the horrible game play, ‘The Eternal Night’ comes with means to keep the player coming back for more. Unlockables include in-game artwork and mini games; these can be viewed if a player collects a certain amount of items throughout the game. There are feathers, green masks and orange masks, many hidden and require exploration in order to find them. With over 30 features and 5 masks of each colour, there’s plenty scattered throughout the story, the question is however would you really want to go looking for them when the main game is as awful as it is? Many of the ‘platform’ game genre elements come into play when looking for these items, these include precise jump timing and climbing obstacles. However a hefty number of the items happen to be located over bottomless pits of doom or any other obstacle that results in death if not performed correctly, and considering the control scheme, death is a likely occurrence. If you have happened to defeat an enemy that took you ages to do and you are not sure whether you’ve progressed enough in the game to reach a check point, you’ll be constantly asking yourself’; “Is it really worth risk dying and doing the whole of this section again, all for one feather?”. Sadly, the answer will most likely be a no.

After the first ‘Legend of Spyro’ game, I didn’t have high expectations, but I did have SOME expectations! Even though a few very small elements that were improved from the first game, they were overwhelmed by so much that went wrong or were simply copied from the previous title, luckily the actual game is short in length (excluding all the times to re-load after dying). I can only hope that the 3^rd instalment, (‘The Darkest Hour’, slated for a late 2008 release) learns from this title’s mistakes and delivers a game that’s not only enjoyable and worth while but playable! Whether you enjoyed ‘A New Beginning’ or not, this game is not worth your time.

I can only recommend this game if you;

A) Like the sound of a dying dragon

B) Get a kick out of losing constantly, or

C) Are a die hard fan of Spyro.

Poor Spyro, come back when you’ve dumped Krome Studios!

Song of the Blog

This section really took a beating last entry, I had to rely on another site to provide the lyrics to the song I posted! Not good at all.

The media player is currently playing Utada Hikaru's latest single; Heart Station. If you've read my blog long enough you'll know well enough that Utada Hikaru is one of my favourite artists, and my favourite Japanese artist. Her new album is due for release in Japan on Wednesday 19th March 2008, from the singles she's released so far and the information thats been released about the other tracks on the album - it's going to be a great album I'm sure!

I've provided the Romaji lyrics below and the English translation, both are provided by Sakuramochi on this site.

For more information about Utada Hikaru please click here.

Artist: Utada HIkaru

Song Title: Heart Station

Album: Heart Station

Album Release: 19th March 2008 (Japan), 8th April 2008 (Canada)

Genre: J-pop

English Translation Lyrics:

Rainy day that chills the skin
The two of us, not believing in this separation
The radio was playing inside the car

Saying goodbye is meaningless
If we're able to meet again someday
Don't you think it'll be a beautiful thing?

Are you able to hear my voice?
1 o'clock at night, on heart station
A dial that doesn't need tuning
A secret hertz
Are you receiving the frequencies of my heart?
Heart station of sinners
A secret only God knows
I miss you...

(Can you hear me? Just tell me one thing)
(If you can hear me, say something)

The more I think I need to forget
The more these thoughts remain

Even if we are apart
You are right here
In the middle of my heart

I thought I heard your voice
1 o'clock at night, on heart station
Two pulses, always beating somewhere
Are you receiving the frequencies of my heart?
Heart station of lovers
We're receiving a request again tonight
"I Love You"

Are you able to hear my voice?
1 o'clock at night, on heart station
A secret hertz that still connects us
Are you receiving the frequencies of my heart?
Heart station of sinners
A secret only God knows

Romaji Lyrics:

hadasamui ame no hi, wakeari kenaa futari
kurumano nakawaraji okanagareteta, sayounara

nante ni ganai mata itsuka aetara
suteki douomoi masenka

Watashi no koe ga
kikoete masuka
Shinya ichiji no, HATTO SUTEISHON
Juu-ni RUFU yo no dai aru, himitsu no herusu
Kokoro no tenpa, yoroite masuka
sumibitotachi no, HATTO SUTEISHON
kamisama dake ga, shite iru
I miss you

Ai~ Ai~ Ai~ Ai~, (Can you hear me? Just tell me one thing)
Ai~ Ai~ Ai~, Ai~ (If you can hear me, say something)

Wasure dakei kenai soumou houdo ni
doushite ii omoi de tachi bakari ga, nokoru no

hanarete itemo anata wa kokoni iru
watashi no HATTO no, nannaka

Anata no koe ga
kikoete higashita
Shinya ichiji no, HATTO SUTEISHON
itsumo dokoka de
nate iru, futesu no karusu
kokoro no tenpa
todoi de masuka
koibito tachi no, HATTO SUTEISHON
konya mo rikue sutokitemasu
I love you

Watashi no koe ga
kikoete masuka
Shinya ichiji no, HATTO SUTEISHON
Ima mo bokura wo tsunaiteru, himitsu no herusu
Kokoro no tenpa, yoroite masuka
sumibitotachi no, HATTO SUTEISHON
kamisama dake ga, shite iru
HIMITSU

Thanks for stopping by, drop me a comment if you can. See you all shortly!

This is me, over and out.