I actually got bored looking for the last post I did (that’s a big fat lie, I had a look it was the end of last year I’m being dramatic) so I will class this as my first post of 2011!

It only took me 3 months

Life has been pretty damn hectic over the last few months. This year I seem to have been doing something every single weekend that, while being a bit of a sting on the wallet, I have had an amazing time and met some brilliant people.

Coursework is going slow and steady, I had a bit of a drought in January when I was still crying to get over the Xmas slump and while I was gearing for my exam. So after a week or so of just brushing up on the stuff I didn’t know quite so well I sat my first exam and got 91%! Which I was honestly pretty chuffed with. Important tests like that always worry me, I’m not one for remembering “buzz words” I generally know what I’m on about but ,as has been a slight curse to me in IT, knowing the technical term is not my strong point.

Continuing with that theme I am a stones throw away from starting the project work and am quite geared up for that, being able to really flourish on something that is going towards my final mark is exciting. However I am also currently moving home in preparation for August which is also taking up my time!

August again brings me on to something incredibly exciting. I will officially be working in the video game industry for two months as of August with a work placement with the course. I am absolutely over the moon about this and I couldn’t have dreamed for it to be going any better. Fingers crossed I don’t fuck anything up as its going to look stellar on my CV.

Other than that, life is generally good, keeping my fingers crossed on a couple of things and trying to push myself out of my comfort zone a bit to achieve what I want, if you don’t ask you don’t get right ?

Gaming wise I don’t generally have much free time to play, been playing Minecraft on the #Train2Game official server with the other guys and gals. Currently borrowing #DeadSpace from @VampireDuckling which I am enjoying and have been able to fit in a bit of good old Diablo 2 multiplayer which has been great fun

Anyhoo, that’s generally about it, currently sat writing this post from a sleeping bag on my new Laptop at @VampireDucklings house. Have had a busy weekend going to see Reel Big Fish twice in two days!

good times indeed

I should put a poll up to guess how long it will be till I do another one

Well, it’s close enough so I thought I may as well write something in here.

In Gaming

I seem to have acquired a bazillion and one games over the last few weeks. I bought the Humble Bundle 2, which due to me being a generous fellow also netted me the first one. And then Steam had to go and throw The Witcher at me for about £4, which I honestly couldn’t resist.

Minecraft has gone Beta! Waiting for Multiplay to sort the server integration out was painful but yesterday I went live with the unofficial T2G server and had a mammoth session, with some guys from the course, which was quite honestly full of glory and win!

I managed to join up with some of the Wired Lemon Guys and Gal to enter into the Train2Game christmas competition. We had ten days to produce a game based around an image of postcodes of the UK.

A tall task indeed but I am thoroughly pleased with our creation Postal Pets! Feel free to download and leave a comment

Postal Pets – Wired Lemons 2010 Christmas Competition Entry

And Personally

Had a wicked Christmas. Lots of nice presents, My parents rock at present buying, and some great time with family. My Nieces and my Nephew are real characters, can’t wait to see the next little one in a month or so. should be a quiet new years for me, I’m not that bothered though, January is going to be expensive.

Well there was a huge ass load of text below this but it seems to have died in the process!

Ho-Hum ….

So its been literally *forever* since I last did a real post on here, why ? just because!

I don’t really have a great deal to write about at the moment, everything seems to be moving along at a nice pace and I’m pretty busy.

Gaming wise since I last posted I have purchased Rockband 3 with the Keytar, which I must admit it highly epic! And I also got the Kinect with Dance Central, which again, is epic! Other than those two I’m finding it hard to fit in gaming between study, work and trying not to get bogged down by it all

Went to Brixton to see the Goo Goo Dolls which was incredible! I have always wanted to see them live and when the opportunity cropped up I jumped at the chance, they were also supported by the excellent Unkle Bob who did an awesome support job and set the scene perfectly.

It’s getting near to Christmas now and I have almost done all my shopping, I have a few things to finish off but nothing major. Hopefully I should get a little more disciplined in regards to updating this place as its a shame to see it sat here and get spammed to death

*Disclaimer, to anyone who has been on TV before or ever been interviewed or shit like that, this might not seem like  a big thing. But to me, it felt like something, and that’s positive! I LIKE POSITIVE!*

So Crazy thing happens, when I was at Eurogamer, I had just finished my awesome rendition of the bass part of Power Of Love when I got assaulted by a camera and a lovely young lady asking if I wanted to be interviewed for BBC Switch so I did!

Not really thinking I would ever see it online after a few days I kinda gave up checking for it and then when I went to have a look today what would I find but this!

yes, at about 1:55 you will find me, all of 10 seconds, its a lovely feeling but I had no idea I had such a weird voice.
Ahh well, apart from that its been a busy week pretty much filled with my dedication to the latest Games Concept Treatment competition which was to write a 5 page treatment for a game based on Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Between watching the show and reading the entirety of his 292 page biography I feel like I am pretty much all Dogged out for now, despite that its been a really positive experience. I have gotten my head into the concept of writing documents for games and trying to take in to account and researching things that I am not familiar with. Yeh I feel like I know about games and what makes a game good, but its the other more “business” side of things that are a complete mystery to me.
All good practice and I keep reminding myself I have only been doing this since August and I feel like I have come so far and met so many amazing people!
On a not so positive note, someone cocked up my enrolment so I have to do it again, lame

Meant to do a post on this earlier in the week but it’s been a hectic one and I’m just getting around to it.

So! Last week I got the chance to go to EuroGamer on the Saturday. Cost me an almighty £8 and was worth every penny.

Firstly I struggled down to London straight after work. Taking the train from Banbury I headed in to Marylebone and then made a quick detour to go meet up with Ducky (@VampireDuckling) outside Earls Court for a few pints and a chat.

From there I went up to Holloway Park where I met up with my Brother and his friends for some drinks in an awesome little bar called Big Reds (the local rock’n'roll night spot) and stumbled back to his around 3:30, forgetting that I needed to be a 30 minutes tube ride down in Earls Court as of about 9 the next morning.

4 hours worth of sleep later I got up, had a quick wash, donned my absolutely awesome Train2Game T-shirt (Big thanks to Marty @BHMediaMarty for an awesome job) and headed to Earls Court on the tube, feeling really nervous I might add.

Checking my phone I found everyone was already queued up outside the centre, so made my way to the front where I was welcomed by a gang of Train2Game shirts and some very welcoming people, and it was great to put some names to faces.

Chatting and laughing we managed to get in pretty sharpish and get our wrist bands to be led up an elevator and unleashed upon the show floor.

There was a lot to see and do and I wanted to make sure I met up with all of the other students, so to say I was on a bit of a mission was an understatement.

I got in and I immediately sat down at a free Fable 3 station that was running the “Prince” demo, I was in no way enticed by the attractive girl in the Fable t-shirt … honest.

Now Fable 3 was a game I initially had very little interest in, I had played the previous two and while I enjoyed them the idea had kind of got old and I wasn’t expecting much but wow was I impressed! Not only have they changed the graphical style quite considerably, it feels so incredibly polished (bar a few bugs with subtitles I noticed) that it was instantly engrossing. The story the characters and the way in which the game immediately begins challenging you with decisions you know will affect things in the future is very satisfying and makes you want to play more.

I would buy this purely for the story, I got 30 minutes of play and I REALLY wanted more.

The biggest surprise for me by far was AC:Brotherhood. They only had the multiplayer demo on show but it was everything I wanted an assassins creed multiplayer game to be.

Imagine the scene, 8 players all given individual avatars. The streets are filled with multiples of those same to act as the “crowd” and its everyone’s jobs to assassinate everyone else! Using the scenery, buildings, your stealth, cunning and skills you have to outwit each other and get the one important strike on your opponent before you are killed.

It all leads in to very fun and intense multi player battles, it’s a shame that you cant buy this portion on its own as I would be there with bells on!

Anyone who knows me would see this coming a mile off, I have been a constant fan of the RB series even since before the first game came out and ever since I have been following every single weekly release of tracks and every single game release Harmonix have done in the series.

My main plan was to try out the keyboard peripheral, which happily I managed to to, I got to play Light My Fire by The Doors an the experience was a good one. Like with any of the new instruments there is a learning curve but once I worked out which buttons I had to use it flowed well and felt good, can’t wait to get the keyboard and get some practice in!

Other than that I had a go in the band mode on the Bass, same old affair looks really nice but I got to have a go on Huey Lewis, which is always a bonus and I found it kind of ironic seeing as I seem to be listening to it a bit too much as of late.

Those were the main three I tried, I had a brief go on Fallout Vegas but mainly I was watching the games and soaking up what everyone else was doing while playing them.

Spent a lot of time talking with the other Train2Game guys and gals and met an absolutely awesome group of people, it really felt like something special and was an absolute pleasure to be a part of.

This is just a test really to see if all my account linking is working – website ->twitter -> facebook

*magic*

OK, so its been a little while and I feel like I say this on a fairly regular basis but things seem to have settled now and I can post stuff with some meaning.

HOWEVER! tonight is not the night as im knackered and just wanted to test my Twitter / Facebook uber link is working.

But I will post this picture, because I like it (and I made it)

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