I’M A STUDEEEENNNNTTTT!!!

It’s been a while and I never actually thought I would say it again but I have signed up to do a video game designer course with Train2Game.

Originally kind of petrified that it might be a shame my worries have since been quelled and it seems to all be 100% legit, all the documents seem legitimate and I get an NUS card, I suppose it can’t get much more legitimate than that ?

I’ve tried to get involved as much as possible, been on the forums less than a week and have entered a level design competition and also offered my services as a beta tester on a game being made by someone on the forums.

I made the following level, the spec was for a 4 player death match level but I think I only managed to scrape together something that will struggle to fit two people, oh well, this is is :

DM_Venice

Altogether very very exciting! Kinda loosing focus at work but honestly I dont care, I have the chance of doing what I have always wanted to do and I’m not going to let that slip me by!

Happy days

http://mekadragon.com/work/udk/dm_venice/flyby1.png

Been hitting the games a fair bit as of late.

Firstly I bought the Monkey Island 2 remake, then I bought Deathspank, I bought all the expansion packs to Magic the Gathering, BlazBlue and I almost bought a new graphics card just to play the Final Fantasy XIV beta…

While not a bad thing it’s a bit of a change from what I had been used to over the last five years or so, coming out of a long ass relationship is never going to be easy, but you just tend to find your self with more time on your hands…

Deathspank I think I overdid, its a very good game and genuinely makes me laugh out loud but I must have played it for about 6 or 7 hours in two days and I’m a little fed up of it now. I will hit it again soon most likely, or it will end up in the pile of games I never actually finish but purchase on concept.

Magic the Gathering on Xbox live is a weird one, I purchased it when it was first on sale for 400 points but never really touched it, but since moving in with @Maximumfish and Moorby I have found us playing it on a fair few evenings and really enjoying the collecting of new cards and the genuine (if kinda lucky) challenge. However we have managed to crash the game on more than one occasion .

BlazBlue I bought because I had always heard good things about it, and Play were selling the limited edition version which comes with a really nice art book for £17.99. Snapped that up and I don;t actually think I have ever owned a Guilty Gear game, so quite looking forward to this one.

Well to be honest that’s not true, the game is not to fail, my graphics card is …

I got an invite into the Final Fantasy XIV Beta and I was actually pretty excited to give it a go, but after installing the launcher and starting to patch I was hit with an error.

After about 20 minutes or so I went through and trawled the forums to find other people with the same problems, more and more reading lead me to the awful truth. My graphics card was no longer up to speed, a game had been released that I actually cannot play due to the limitations of my hardware!

I understand this was going to happen eventually but the fact I put my graphics card on my application and got an invite and THEN find out it’s not compatible is a bit of an ass. I would understand if Square-enix sold graphics cards but then don’t and the temptation right now to go out and buy a new one is very very much there….

So looking around I certainly have some ideas.. but do I really want to go and spend £100 on a new graphics card when I have other things to play ? I finished Monkey Island 2 and am very close to finishing Transformers so maybe it is time for something else ? I would just prefer not to spend £100 to enable me to play it

Weekend over!

Had a really really good one, nice and relaxing and generally felt I was having a good time.

The initial test for chillout tent V1 seemed to go well, i’m a bit more likely to spend some money to buy something a little more permanent.

Got around to reading the Winter Mouse Guard book, what a stunning piece of art! I want to write more about the book but I feel I can’t justify it.

I also went on a bit of a spree and ended up buying the Mouse guard RPG as well. It runs on the Burning Wheel, which is a very “different” way of playing RPG’s that i’m honestly not used too. It feels much more free style and with our being used to such a structured play that is D&D it might take some efforts to get used to but i’m excited to give it a try

Yesterday saw the release of the second remake in the Monkey Island franchise with the release of Monkey Island 2 : leChuck’s Revenge Special Edition on the Xbox 360.

.

Thankfully due to the awesomeness of it all it has been given a thorough and pretty damn decent overhaul and as with the first remake its a spectacle and oozes fan service.

It’s quite funny playing these games again, its interesting to see what you remember and why you remember them. Mike seems to be able to remember certain things for particular reasons and I remember some things for others.

For example I knew I had to pick up Largo’s spit on a piece of paper it was just finding the piece of paper (Which I found in the Cartographers ship).

you can’t fault the remake in any way, apart from maybe its insistence to get you to try direct control *blergh* but other than that it is perfect. A good couple of hours of entertainment and laughs ahoy in a wonderfully piratey adventure.

I just hope that one day they decide to bring the Telltale ones out on the 360, I could certainly go for playing through those I just don’t want to on either the Wii or my PC! Go figure ..

Watching Ponyo tonight, I haven’t seen it since I went to the cinema but I remember it being amazing. Can’t wait to see it on a friends new “cinema” setup.