Not Addicted After All

Mua ha ha ha ha! Looks like I'm not THAT addicted to blogging after all. It's been almost 2 weeks since my last post and honestly the only reason I'm posting something now is because I've got nothing much to do at the moment. I've been chugging along in life for the past few weeks, trudging through the dreariness that makes up the life of Da Chris.

The past 2 weeks have been filled with quite a fair bit of activity for the Christmas production that I am currently involved in. Being involved feels somewhat trying as I've been at loggerheads somewhat with my best buhd over certain things. The whole production seems rushed & stressful due to the lack of time. If there are any of you DUMC-ians out there reading this give me a call now if you can help out because there is so much to do and so little time. We especially need volunteers who can help out especially in the editing of the video segments for the production.

Spiritually it's been a dry period; a trek through an endless desert that seems to have no end. I stumbled onto an oasis yesterday morning and had a great time being quiet before God. Guess I gotta re-learn how to quiet my thoughts down so that I'll be able to listen to His voice in the turmoil that is my heart & my mind. A myriad collection of things bother me and it's so hard for me to sit down and quell these thoughts. This morning was a reprieve and it feels like today will be a good day because of the time spent with God.

On the gaming side, I visited my regular haunt in 1 Utama on Tuesday night and found to my delight that they had a copy of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door available there. That game received a monster review from both GameSpot and GameSpy. The biggest obstacle to getting the game is the hefty price tag of RM230.00. Original games are so expensive. Sigh ... Well it's not like I can't afford to get it, I could but a nagging part of my conscience whispers to me that I really should save up my finances for something more important like a notebook. My PC at home is really growing old. The CMOS battery is dead (I could replace it, but I'm too lazy) and the computer takes a day and an age to boot up. Common apps take sometime to load too (of course I was itchified and installed MS Office 2003 this week but it was slow anyway when I was running Office XP).

Oops ... looks like I've digressed somewhat. Back to gaming. I am currently in the midst of playing StarOcean III: Till The End of Time and well it's not the greatest of RPGs but for some reason I feel like I should finish it since I started it already. The real-time combat system ain't as good as Tales of Symphonia which somehow detracts a lot of fun from all the combat that my characters have to do to level up. The story ain't that great; it's standart Japanese RPG fare where main character discovers that he has great power and probably he'd end up saving the world. The game is pseudo sci-fi in a sense that the planets that Fayt (that's the protagonist) ends up crashing on always seem to be fantasy-based worlds. His main weapon is a sword and well there's magic too but it's called "symbology" in the game. It's a shame really as the game does have some interesting concepts. The voice acting is pretty terrible and the script feels like it's been written by a 12-year old. On a positive note the game does have incredible CG cutscenes which plays out here and there. Very pleasing to the eye I must say. Impressive stuff. I suppose it's hard for other games to compete with the Final Fantasy series of games. The production values in the FF series are far more superior but I suppose that's because of the larger budget that goes into making the game; that and the most talented producer from Square Enix probably helms the development of FF.

Hmmm ... it's close to November. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is close to release and I hope it meets my expectations. For some reason I've grown to have a fondness for sneaker type games. There have been a fair number that have been released in the past few years; Tenchu, Spy Fiction & Splinter Cell to name a few. But so far none of them really can compare to the Metal Gear series. Splinter Cell was alright but after playing the past 2 games I felt that Sam Fisher's adventures weren't too cohesive. The story and gaming experience felt like it was being strung together rather disjointedly which is a shame really as Sam Fisher is such an uber cool character. Of course it helps that Fisher is voiced by Michael (Jester's dead!) Ironside - one of the coolest militant looking actors in existence.

Keep posted for more ramblings. I sense one coming up very very soon. Heh!