After about a week of grinding, I've finally beaten Half-Life 2, and I must say, it was worth it.  Especially the final sequence, which was just as awesome as I'd imagined.  I don't really know what I'm gonna play next, Half-Life's a hard act to follow up, I'm considering starting to play Deus Ex.  I tried to start playing it once, but the first level was TERRIBLE!! :x  I never got past the first level it was so bad, but I've heard that it gets a lot better after that, so I'm gonna try darn it! Anything would be a good return for the $10 I paid for it at a flea market anyways I guess.  Also, today I was prowling through GameSpy's old features, and "Best Of" lists, and found this.  This is an absolutely awesome, and very funny read that every gamer worth their salt should memorize.  Yes, I know it's very long, but trust me, it's worth it.  GameSpy also has some very good features in their feature archive for anyone who wants to look, but out of all of them this one is by far my favorite.  Seriously, read it. Also, if you refuse to read it, here's something that had me absolutely hysterical after I read it: did you know Duke Nukem Forever was announced before Half-Life one came out? And Half-Life 2 has been out for over a year. Yeah...0_o

Well, I put Pandora Tomorrow back on the shelf, and, like I said, I'm determined to beat Half-Life 2.   I just grinded for 2 hours straight to finish up the Nova Prospekt area, and now I'm at the last part of the game where you assault the citadel, looking forward to that, I'm glad I finally beat that, I've been stuck there forever.  I returned The Jungle to the library, it was boring.  Maybe I'll go back someday and finish it, it is a classic, but not right now.  I started reading Lord of the Flies, it's much better so far.  And that's about all I'm doing right now as I sit in front of my computer typing while watching The Price Is Right.

So that's my title because I couldn't think of one.  Sorry I left, but I'm back now.  As for events in my life, I have purchased Field Commander, because I heard a lot of positive buzz on the PSP forums.  Also, I heard it was an Advance Wars rip-off with online, which is more than enough to sell me on it, I love Advance Wars, I bought a DS just to play Dual Strike.  I haven't played the online yet, but I have played the single-player, and it's good, I can see it providing a lot of long-term play.  I'm also playing a lot of online Socom FTB lately.  And remember the job idea thing I was talking about to make money? yeah, I've pretty much given up that idea, I'll just go through my summer poor and broke, like usual, but I'll live.  As for what I'm doing on my consoles, I'm playing through SC: Pandora Tomorrow again. (Double Agent can't come out soon enough! Who am I kidding, I probably won't have a 360 by then anyways...) I think I might start playing Half-Life 2 again though, I feel guilty having not finished it.  Same thing with Resident Evil 4.  But I have all summer to do that.  I just finished reading Brave New World, it was really good, almost as good as 1984, but not quite.  I tried to start reading The Jungle, but now that it's summer I've lost motivation, and will probably stop reading until school starts up again.  Not that I want that to happen, but that's how it always ends up working out.  What's everyone else playing/reading/doing?

I'm gonna be gone again this weekend, I'm sorry for the inconvenience for all my unions.  I'll be temporally transfering leadership of the TV Union to captainryan until Monday when I return.

Yeah, it's a stupid title, but I couldn't think of anything else.  Last night I upgraded my PSP to firmware 2.71, it lets you download demos for games, which I thought was worth the trouble of upgrading over.  The only demo they have up right now is for Loco Roco, the one with the orange blog things.  I went ahead and downloaded it (after registering with the Playstation Underground, which was more frustrating than you might think :x).  It took about 10 minutes to download, but everything worked fine.  I went and tried the demo, and it was okay, it was a little boring if you ask me, the game was really, really simple, and unless it gets great reviews I'll probably skip it, but it was a way for me to figure out how to use the download feature, and for free it was decent, and some better demos are bound to come out eventually.  Yesterday was my first real day of summer break, and, like I thought, I spent pretty much all day alternating between getting on here, and playing Stranger's Wrath.  The only real exciting thing that happaned was on the general discussion boards, some guy called me a noob, and then used a more-than-rude obscenity, so I reported him, and this morning I got a response going along the lines of, "thank you for notifying our moderators of the problem, we have taken appropriate action." I got about 8% towards my next level yesterday, and since I'm pretty sure %6 is the max you can get per day, I think they gave me like 2% for it.  The job thing isn't really working out, I'm still looking though.  I thought about going around and pulling weeds out of peoples' yards, but that would be really hard work and I wouldn't get payed that much.  I don't know, it's such a hard decision: no money to do anything, or doing back-breaking work all day for very little money.  :(  But anyways, I'll probably be on GS almost all day today again, so I can be reached at any time if anyone has anything to tell me.  Here's to hoping things get more interesting!

Well, I have made two purchases.  The first one I got at Barnes and Noble, and hardback copy of Animal Farm and 1984 TOGETHER!! I couldn't believe they had them together in one book, I knew as soon as I saw it I had to have it, so I did (everyone should read those two books, they're excellent).  My second purchase was a game I got based on a recommendation off of here, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath.  It's really good, you play this Clint Eastwood-inspired character named Stranger (he's a bounty hunter).  The coolest part of the game is the way it seamlessly blends first and third person action together, with a click of the thumbstick your third-person action game becomes a first-person shooter, or vice versa.  And you can do this at any time.  So yeah, it's really cool.  It's not super-rare or anything, but it's getting more difficult to find (I had to go to three places), so go buy it now while you still can, it's only $20.  Sorry I haven't been on for a couple days, I'll go post in my unions later today, hope everyone's having a good weekend, I certainly am. :D

I have decided *gasps* beyond reasonable doubt, that the 360 is going to be my first next-gen console, and in the end the games got me.  Sure, the PS3 has some awesome games coming out for it...but just look at the breakdown: (There are probably going to be multi-platformers on here.  Deal with it.)

PS3:

1. Metal gear Solid 4.  For some hard-core fanboys, this will be enough to sell them.  I like MGS, don't get me wrong, but not enough to warrant a $600 purchase.

2.  Assassin's Creed.  I actually want this more than MGS4 believe it or not, I love this kind of stealth, almost chess-like, game.  I think that's what I like about Splinter cell so much.

Okay, now for the 360: (Yes, there are only two games that really interest me about the PS3. Right now)

1.  Halo 3.  Do I even have to explain this one?

2.  Gears of War.  This looks a lot like a third-person Halo with a better story if you ask me, and that's more than enough for my taste! :wink:

3.  Lost Planet.  Gears of War style game + Bioware development = massive awesomeness. 'Nuff said.

4.  Splinter Cell: Double Agent.  Yes, this coming out for the PS3 too, however Splinter Cell has always come out for the Microsoft console first, and I would be surprised to see that change now, and I'm not willing to wait 3 months more to play my beautiful Splinter Cell for an extra 2 frames per second and slightly more detailed enviroments.

5.  Mass Effect.  KOTOR + sci-fi universe + Bioware development = more awesomeness.  Again, 'nuff said.

6. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.  Okay, people who thought Morrowind was a piece of trash are loving Oblivion. I cannot put Morrowind down.  What does that say to me?

Judging from that right there, I'm saying 360 has the lead in my mind right now.  And being $200 cheaper never hurts either. :P

I'm officially out for summer, and I'm already bored, so expect to see a lot more of me for a few months! :wink: Well, remember that lack of money that I talked about in my last blog post? Well, I'm trying to fix that by getting some sort of job.  Minimum wage is about $40 a day, so there's my 360 in 10 days! :D Well, if I can get a job in the first place that is.

Tomorrow is my last day at of school this year.  This good for the obvious reasons, I don't have to go to school for three months.  How is this bad? Well, if anyone is curious, the reason I've been gone so much is because I'm moving this summer.  Blah.  This means I get to leave the people I've known since 2nd grade.  More blah.  However, I'm not moving until the very end of the summer, which leaves me with an entire summer of...nothing.  That's why I'm so un-excited about summer, I literally have NOTHING to do.  No plans to speak of.  And no money to do anything.  And no way to get any money.  So here's the break down:

Pluses: No school work! :P

Minuses: Weeks and weeks of boredom, nothing to keep me busy, and no money. And I'm never going to see any of old friends (whom I've been with since 2nd grade) again.

Just doesn't feel like a fair trade to me.  :(

I'm back from a very productive trip, but my favorite souvenir by far, is from a little used games store I looked through: the (relatively) rare RPG, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga! :D It's an RPG that was reviewed really well, but got a limited release, and I found it for $16! :D Yay for me! Also, I should note that I'll be gone again next weekend, but that's 7 days away, so perish the thought! I'm back up to full posting capacity now, but it's late, and I don't feel like posting in all my unions right now, so goodnight and see you tomorrow! :D