Just another week.

I've been having withdrawals for not playing games as much lately. Like all day yesterday it only took 5 minutes of holding the controller and shoot couple of people and then I was ok. I want to lessen the time I spent on games by probably shaving an hour or two each night or even missing 2 nights in a row (OH GAWD).

Regarding COD4, I finally finished the game on Veteran. I'm only missing the "Your Show Sucks" Achievement. I'm going to try again tonight definitely though. Also I should get COD 2 in the mail today. I'm gonna play the game for the campaign and get couple of achievements along the way.

Meanwhile I'm trying to finish up GRAW 2 so I can send it on the mail and get Fight Night; the wife wanted to get a boxing game so she can kick my ass.

This weekend me and couple friends of mine are going snowboarding! woohoo! This is my first time doing the snowboard and am looking forward to it.

Back from leave and more!

I just got back from leave today. Spent some quality time with the wife and played some games ;). Now I’m just waiting orders for deployment or ... to PCS atta here.
I'd like to comment on couple games that I've played these past 2 weeks.

Lego Star Wars TCS

Me and my wife logged about 20+ hours at least, it included some team killings (intentional and unintentional) and little bit of yelling here and there. There's no Game Over screen, most people have commented this game could have been more fun like adding more variety and not being repetitive most of the time but hey what game doesn't do those? You'll spend a good amount of time breaking legos, building them and solving puzzles and the best part is going thru the game just like in the 6 episodes in Legos! Playing characters from the movie was pretty fun, especially the part where I get to play Yoda, but hey I'm a geek like that.
Although some parts could be a little bit infuriating, overall it's a really fun game. After 2 weeks of playing it I manage to get a most of the achievements except for the "collect all x" ones and the 100% game complete of course. I just sent it back yesterday and we'll definitely miss it.

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare
I'm currently working on finishing the game on Veteran. And I must say.... it's really tough, involves a lot of going back to checkpoint after checkpoint. I'll give an update on it once I finally finish it or break my xbox360 out of frustration.

Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 2
I just got this on the mail Tuesday. I've only managed to finish the first act on the hardest difficulty but so far I like it. Some parts are more difficult but I don't mind.

World of Warcraft
I got my subscription back up again for the fourth time. This time I finally hit 70 on my Warrior after a year the expansion came out. What made me come back was the patch 2.3 and an email from one of my old guild mates that the guild is getting back up and ready for the next expansion. I’d say for $40 the expansion has lots of playtime to offer. I haven’t even started playing the new races, might do that this weekend. Most zones are well thought and lots of quest to do, it’s just quest heaven for a guy like me who likes to explore. It’s going to be a) level my level 60 hunter to 70, b) make a new Blood Elf toon or c) do instances for gear on my warrior. AAhhh so much to do and not enough time!

I doubt I’ll be able to play as much as I did past 2 weeks now that I’m back to work but I’ll squeeze a couple of hours here and there. If you guys are on xlive and wanna play just hit me up and I’ll join a match or 2. XBL tag is Spybreak4u.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry for haven't posting in awhile folks. Just been busy past week for my wife's arrival. After around 30+ hours of travel she was just exhausted yesterday. The most interesting part was after about a week worth of cleaning up my apartment, getting stuff ready, cooking some food, getting some furnitures the one thing that she liked most was the fact that I brought her flowers when I picked her at the airport ... really?! I guess that's a woman for you.

I just got Lego Star Wars in the mail the other day so we just need another controller and we can start lightsabing it up! was that even a word? it is now!

Veteran's Day Weekend

I bought Call of Duty 4 last friday and haven't stop playing since. Reminds me really of CS, fun game indeed.We helped out one of our co-workers move on base for like a half day that Saturday and proceeded to play COD4 with my buddies. Sunday I had to fix the house a little bit, cook some chicken adobo, and watch some good ol anime. And on Veterans day I watched couple episodes at History channel about our Wake Island how they fought off the Japanese back in WWII and I finally finished Splinter CELL DA, short and sweet game btwy.

Regarding PC games there's a post at Keen and Graev and at Anyway Games talking about upcoming changes in the MMORPG genre.
I think we need changes or at least more of a variety in the MMORPG table. I'm playing console games right now I had to take a break from MMORPGs just waiting for the right moment to hop back on the role playing wagon. I might give Tabula Rasa a try though despite the reviews and even Mythos.

When I deploy this January and the circumstances permit I might bring my xbox/laptop and get an RPG game that will occupy me during my free time for a good couple of months. Mass Effect anyone?

MMORPGs and Console game

Hmm.... I've been looking at these 2 games (COD4 and lego star wars) for quite awhile now and I want to get both of them but I won't(120 bucks!). I'm just thinking right now which one to rent first.

I took a break from MMORPGs after 2 years and got back on the console madness a month ago. Maybe I'll get back when friends starts playing again who knows or when a new shiny game comes out.

One thing I miss about MMORPGs is the social factor. I play with RL friends via xboxlive but other than that I usually go solo. I miss exploring, meeting people and making some good friends in the process, doing quest as a group, and sometimes just sit back and chat with guildies. I guess maybe thats why I stop playing, lots of friends quit online it isn't just the same anymore, andI don't think I had to the energy to invest my time again to find a guild and star over.

I do like my xbox360 though if only I can get more RL friends or get some of my WoW/LOTRo/Guild Wars to rock out with me in Guitar Hero 3 or just go wild and get on a Warthog and mow down some people.

Another WTF?! moment

I am out of words to describe how infuriating my situation is right now. 2 weeks ago I had a “tentative” approval on my retraining on being a linguist; it means I have been selected for retraining and just waiting for a class date. So there I was feeling good, just happy to be alive. Then after 2 weeks I look up the status online and it says they don’t have any info on it. WTH?! I said to myself this either could be a really good thing or a really bad one. So I called AFPC and after 30 min of being on hold I was told that they have cancelled my retraining and that the other jobs that I have put in has also been disapproved for the reasons of being out of Quotas or no class date available, I wanted to reached thru the other end of the phone and start choking him.

I know what the word tentative means but 99% of the time that when you do get selected you just wait for a class date anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months. The other jobs that I put in for has also been denied and they also said that I couldn’t apply for retraining unless I lose my slot for my current job. On top of that this is the last month for my retraining. Wow 3 bad luck streaks in a row. Could it get any worse? I wanna stab somebody in the face with a pen right now but it will only end up getting my ass whop most likely.

Rant off/

It's Friday!

And no civilians on sight >_> just me and my military coworker in the office right now.

Well one more week and it's going to be my wife's appointment at the Consulate in Manila. Then another week she gets her Visa. What that means is I have to start cleaning up my apartment and make it at least fit for human habitation. I gotta get some furnitures too! REELP!

Game wise I'm currently playing Splinter Cell DA and GH2; switching games every often. I played the Guitar, Base Guitar, and the Piano (I sucked at drums) while I was in High School for a church band so rockin out at the same time playing a game is an instant A+ game for me. But I wanna finish splinter cell, brings me back during my early psone and ps2 days with the Metal Gear Series and the first splinter cell game.

Hopefully I can push myself to do something productive this weekend.

Achievement Points and Me

I have just recently bought my Xbox 360 and I was introduced to these Xbox 360 Achievements. One poster at xbo360 site forum says it’s a new form of crack, maybe he’s right. Once you hear that sound that you have unlocked an achievement you get that feeling that you have accomplished something, that the game acknowledges it, and that it’s there for your friends to see and brag about.

One of the positive sides of achievement points is it expands your game play, encourages you to perform tasks that you normally wouldn’t do and the result is you experience more of the game that what you have expected. One good example is finding the skulls in Halo 3 and then playing thru the campaign again with the skulls on and same time get enough points in and finish it in a decent amount of time, I think that kicks it up a notch and takes the game to a new level.

The negative effects are playing mediocre games that you wouldn’t even touch if I wasn’t for achievement points and there is a good amount of them out there. Reading spoilers/sites that helps u get as much points in one run, which ends up you ruining a great game’s story for you. I have sometimes countered the latter by running thru a game w/o spoilers then come back again for the achievements that I missed. But sadly this is not always the case.

There is a competitive side of me that wants to join the ranks of the 1337 players who has their gamer score way up there. Play as many games regardless of quality and get as much achievements while enduring dull/grueling/unforgiving game experience on the process, although I’m sure there are a good amount of games that can be done in less than 8 hours, still that’s 8 hours.

And then there is the casual player in me that says points will come along. Just play the game for fun, don’t worry about the score that really doesn’t mean anything except boost your e-penis. But the thing is I’m not really your typical casual player; well at least right now. I’m in between the hardcore and casual players, I’m a hardcore/power gamer that has not enough time. I know that when my wife finally gets here my playtime will be reduced. And even then I’m still a competitive/power gamer who just plays casually.

My wife recently told me that I play games like there is no tomorrow and my usual response when she asked me to rest up abit is "can I just finish just this level/quest/match?" which leads to another one and another one. I’m really grateful that my wife understands and lets me be who I am.

After reflecting on my current dilemma, I know I’ll still play games with or w/o achievements because gaming is just imprinted on my genes. In the end my stance on this issue is, I want my gamer score to go up but without the feeling of being constrained by playing games that doesn't interest me plus I'm also a PC gamer(MMORPGs, FPS) so it's easier to let go of the 360 controller when games like WaR comes out for pc.

Madness?! It's Guitar Hero 3!

Last night one of my good friends ,we'll call him Razzle Dazzle, got suckered into buying the GH3. We had a blast last night playing with the whole crew with our overprice Guitar controllers. We definetely had a good time just look at these pics!

No Mail for you!

sent a mail last week paying $40 for the Global Express Guaranteed. I have used this service before and it went well. But this time .... they missent it to Chicago and the last update on the tracking number was the 27th of October.

You know I'm not that ticked off about it until I called the Operator service for USPS. I found out that to actually talk to somebody who knows what their talking about is the same thing as flipping a coin.

I have talked to about 5 of them and each of them had different answer to my dilemma. I asked about refund and same thing happen I had to talk to 3 individuals and hang up then call the same number to get someone who's not rude and they knew what they were talking about. So now I have to go post office and hopefully they can help. That's my vent for the day.

Spybreak out