I am Ninja, You are Ninja.

Song for the post: “Arch Enemy – Revolution Begins“

Ok maybe not. Finally I have found the time and energy to spit out a post.

So what have I been up to. Hmm.

Christmas was MMO filled. My brother came over from Calgary and I promptly pulled the extra TV and plopped it down in the living room so he could play FF11. Which I recently resubbed too. I have been having a blast being tortured by the grindy difficulty of that game. It is hardcore and I love it.

As usual I have been trying to get some Skate time in but a lot of that time is being killed by FF11.

So what have I been doing in Final Fantasy 11. Hmm to much. Right now I am trying to level a ton of classes through an area called Valkrum dunes. The new expansion came out recently and I jumped right into the dancer class. I love it. Prancing around in tight leather with my little Tarutaru is a blast. But then the cold hard truth hit me. YOU NEED NINJA TO LEVEL THIS JOB, AH AH AHHHHH. Ninja is killing me. I have to level this class to do anything in Final Fantasy 11. Dark Knight/Ninja, Warrior/Ninja, Samurai/Ninja, White Mage/Ninja….. NINJA NINJA NINJA. AAAAHHHHHH!!! Sorry for the Kinison moment but it had to be said.

Ninja for those not in the know are blink tanks, or evade tanks. They use shadows to confuse there enemy into attacking the shadows instead of the ninja himself. Damn that sounds cool as hell. But it truly isn’t. You spend most of your time counting shadows and praying that your off tank with provoke (Taunt) the mob off your paper tank ass so you can recast your shadows.

Anyways that is the way my gaming time has been spent.

Just wanted to throw this little bit out there. I saw two really good music documentaries this last couple of weeks.

First was American Hardcore. A documentary about punk music threw the 80’s. It is brilliant.

Second was Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. It follows Heavy Metal fan Sam Dunn as he tries to figure out what metal music is all about. There is also a nice little short about Norwegian Black Metal, sadly my favorite NBM was not in it Dimmu Borgir.

Anyways time for me to roll back to the life of a ninja. /sobs

Hailin signing out. Keep on Rolling.

PS to Kevin of TSisD and Brackish. Where you guys go. We all miss reading you blogs. Peace.

November Gaming

Music for the article: We threw gasoline into the fire now we have no eyebrows and stumps for arms – NoFx

Wow what a great last couple of months we have all had as gamers. This has to be one of the strongest line ups to date.

So what have I been playing this month alone? Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, and COD4.

All three games were hyped to the high heaven’s and not all of them lived up to the hype. So which one didn’t, well Assassin’s Creed didn’t. Never have I been so excited for a game of this style only to be bored to hell with it.

Yes as the reviews say it is repetitive. The most common comeback is but all games are repetitive in some way. Well yes they are. But when the subject matter that has such a wonderfully dark and interesting history as the crusades is just torn apart and shit upon I get a tad annoyed.

Let’s get this out of the way right now. Yes the US and Canada is over in the middle east. Yes I guess in some small way you could call it a modern day crusade. You have your western political mind trying to cram it’s beliefs down the throats of a country that is split by years and years of war and abuse. Just like back then it was religion now it is democracy. Whether I believe in the war over there is yah or nah in this situation. Let’s quit walking this Politically Correct fine line and just put it out there. Cause your ruining our gaming experience because you are afraid of hurting certain sides. Grow some nuts. By the end of the game it doesn’t matter because you discover all you want is peace in the end.

The story line is very blasted boring from start to finish I was like “FOR real?”. All I can say is Ubisoft your PC bullshit has gone to far in my mind. It’s your game but god if the rumors end up being true and it is held in feudal Japan then you just piss all over history then forget it I am not buying. And I love me some ass kicking ninja action. I do hope gamers (And I know anyone that reads this blog most certainly is.) is smart enough to know there was more to the crusades then this pile of steaming history lesson. If not start here. Hell I will say it The Christian’s wanted Jerusalem back from the Muslim’s. End of story thanks for playing. Why do you need to hide parts of history to suit your PC needs?

Jade Raymond I believe was quoted as saying “We wanted to build a new IP and new technology.” Well Jade what your team built is a TECH DEMO for crying out loud. So can we expect the next Splinter Cell to be AMAZING? As long as Jade’s team isn’t doing the mission story structure we should be ok.

Now rest assured it is not all bad. The graphics, and the animations are all stunning as hell. High five for the team for those two things. For the most part the free running or parkour is just awesome. All the review sites that gave it a 7/10 I agree with wholeheartedly. Sorry Gabe, but I got to side with 1up’s review.I still love the comics and articles though. It’s still a very worthy rental though.

Oh yah and to that little turd on the IGN podcast. Eh you lost my listener ship you mouthy ass. Google Penny Arcade Vs IGN for more info. Gabe is still the man as far as I am concerned. Pretty funny how it didn’t even phase 1up.

COD4 hmm don’t have a lot to say. It is a FPS on rails like always. It is really purty and plays really well. The multiplayer is not my cup of tea but the rainbow six and halo crowd can now meet on common grounds. Why is there no cover system? That is the only complaint I got.

On to the reason for gaming greatness in November. Mass Effect is my GOTY. It is so F’in good. I finished last week, and even today I am still thinking about it. /wipes up some drool. GOD it is good. Like the first time you saw Luke blow up the death star good. You cheered the inner geek in you came to the surface and cheered. Well Mass effect will make you cheer. Just trust me. Scary when a game is so good that you look past the glitchs and problems and still scream out for more. Everyone with a 360 needs to experience this game. It should sell systems. Mircosoft might beat out Wii and PS3 this month or maybe that is just me hoping more people will experience this amazing game. With EA buying out Bioware expect the second one to hit every platform imaginable. God it is good. Sorry just had to say it one last time. Listen to last weeks Massively Online Gamer and the Cagcast podcasts to hear some interesting Mass Effect coverage. CheapyD is so right on about it feeling like Starflight. That game kicked ass.

Hailin Signing out and apologizing for not blogging more often. /jumps into bed tired and cranky dreaming of fighting and killing Geth.

A couple of things and a pimp

Wow what a weekend I have had. Actually it really wasn’t that exciting till I got Halo3.

Yes I am now a hypocrite. I told everyone I knew I wasn’t buying it and poof I did. Well actually I traded in some games for it since why spend money when I don’t have to. Part of being a gaming tramp is to be a cheap skate. So that is what I did.

Now as far as Halo3 goes I LOVE it. For now. I am not to sure on the multi-player. I haven’t had enough time with it to say yeh or neh. (Like yay or nay just more chilled.)

Most of the complaints coming from the podcasting community have been about the cheesy cinematic dialog. I have to agree. BUT, here it is folks, I think the dialog is fun and enjoyable. I makes me want to see what will happen next and is highly enjoyable. It’s campy fun and there is nothing wrong with that. With all the serious shooters hitting the shelves Halo3’s storyline is a breath of fresh air and so cheesy I can’t stop playing it.

Right now I am going through it on 4 player campaign. Bungie did some amazing coding to get this to work. I am extremely impressed with the quality. We get the odd slow down or person crashing. For the most part it is smooth. We have discovered only one major bug with the frame rate totally crashing. Other then that high five to Bungie. I can see only one other game offering this much fun and that is Orange Box from Valve which I believe releases next week.

On the MMO front I have let EQ2 die. As I have said in previous posts I have grown frustrated and bored with it. I do want to thank Brackish over at Brackish Waters for stepping up and say hey dude come play with us. While I am grateful I am on the line about it. I have been reading his site for a time now and watching him get hooked on SOE’s baby. The enthusiasm he has for the game is not at the same level for me. He is reading lore (Which I never did), paying attention to quests (Which I just hyper clicked through), Brack is diving into the game head first and giving a damn. I think my interest has waned so much I just don’t give a damn about Norath anymore. I gave it the old college try and I failed miserably at it. Warhammer anyone.

On a side note about Brackish, catch him on the new Shut up We’re Talking along with host Darren and Keen and Graev. Every episode has been great this one is just as awesome.

Hailin signing out, and getting pwned by a 12 year old near you soon.

MoG morphs into Gaxonline.com

Gary and Ryan have stepped up into a new form of the web. It now encompasses forums, news, blogs. It pretty much offers what every other blogging social network offers.

I need to spend some more time surfing around it. It’s definitely interesting and I am excited to see where this leads. I just wish I could link my blog to it instead of being signed up for a totally new blog. The site does look a tad bland but stability before purty.

Check it out at Gaxonline.