• 4Oct 08

  Now Playing

  It's been a busy month for me with school, and I haven't had as much time as I usually do for games. But here's a quick rundown of what I've been up to:

  My second Xbox 360 suffered its inevitable red-ring last week in the middle of a particularly productive game of Braid. I'm not a huge fan of the game, mostly because I don't think it warranted a $15 price point and I find some of the puzzles unfairly designed, but I'm determined to finish it. Before the red-ring fiasco, I kept myself busy with Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise and Rock Band 2. They're both ideally suited for quick play sessions during study breaks.

  On the PlayStation front, the game I've been waiting for since buying the system finally launched last week. WipEout HD is basically a best-of compilation from WipEout Pure and Pulse on the PSP, but the amazing visuals and sound make it well worth the $20 price tag.

  I'd made a decision not to download any new games for the Wii until Nintendo devised a solution to their storage problem. Their "taking stuff out of your fridge" angle was ridiculous, and I wasn't going to give them any more of my money until they opened up the SD slot. Then I noticed that I still had 150 blocks of space left, which was just enough room for Mega Man 9 and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Mega Man II was one of my favorite games as a kid, when I obviously had much more patience for games. Mega Man 9 is killing me, and I'm loving every minute. Super Mario RPG was also a favorite, and it's just as fun to play now as it was back on the SNES.

  I'm trying to play Lego Batman on my PSP, but it has this minor bug where the game won't actually load past the title screen. Given the fact that the game case insert says Lego Batman is two UMDs, I'm guessing they didn't put all that much effort into the PSP port.

  I'm also fairly disappointed with Kirby Super Star Ultra on the DS. I never played the original SNES version, but I'm a huge Kirby fan and assumed that Super Star would be much like its DS predecessors. I find the experience too disjointed, and each minigame lacks enough substance for me to want to replay it. It's unfocused, directed at a younger audience even moreso than previous games, and it just isn't as fun to play as any other Kirby game.

  Re-posted from Doctor Fishypants.

  • Posted Oct 4, 2008 5:16 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 12Aug 08

  So......

  As it turns out, medical school is a huge time commitment. Go figure. I knew I'd have much less spare time, but I didn't realize it would be this restricted. With lecture from 8AM-5PM every day, I have about 2 hours to sit and relax in the evening before heading back to the library to study. By the time I get home at night, I have time to play a few minutes of some DS game while I'm in bed before falling asleep (usually with the DS still on) and waking up at 6AM.

  So I apologize for being entirely absent recently. Facebook and GameSpot are both blocked while I'm on campus, which is where I spend the vast majority of my time. It means that, over the short term, I won't be around nearly as much. I'll try to help out in the moderation queue as needed, but it'll be a while before I'm back to posting. Once Anatomy is over I should (hopefully) have a bit more spare time. I hate the subject (and the cadavers), but it feels good to finally be learning a science that I can actually use as a physician.

  P.S. If anyone happens to have a good wallpaper image of Dr. Mario, I could really use it for my new laptop. My inbox (bfish62@gmail.com) would be very appreciative

  • Posted Aug 12, 2008 7:28 pm PT
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• 9Jul 08

  At a Loss for Words

  Last year, I posted one of the essays I submitted for my applications to medical schools. If you haven't read it, you may want to take a look at it now to get the proper context for this post. As you can probably assume from that personal statement, it has always been my dream to become a physician. I love GameSpot, I love video games, I love writing about video games, and I love helping out in the community here. But my real passion has always been medicine. I applied to medical schools last fall for entrance into the c|ass of 2012, but as the rejection letters kept coming, I began to think that I'd missed my opportunity. I moved in with my fiance and decided to apply for PhD programs in Psychology, because I like the research I'm doing right now. It lets me interact with patients on a daily basis, but that's all I'm really doing - interacting. I don't know enough to treat the symptoms or understand the underlying causes of the disease. With a PhD, I could at least continue my work, teach, and maybe even incorporate my love of video games into my neuroscience research. It was a good plan.
  

  Two days ago, I got a call from the admissions department at one of the schools where I was waitlisted. They wanted to know if I was still interested, and I responded enthusiastically. I never really expected to be getting a call like that one. Yesterday morning, I gave them a call back. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I needed to ask about potential scheduling issues, just in case. The woman I'd been speaking to told me that, although they don't normally tell people about admissions decisions over the phone, mine was a special case. I'd been accepted, and my official letter should be arriving in the mail any day now.

  So why is my case an exception? Well, I needed to be told about the admissions decision as soon as possible because c|asses start July 28. That gives me about 2 weeks to find a place to live, get financial aid in order, and move my entire life to Erie, Pennsylvania. It's exciting and utterly terrifying at the same time. I also feel terrible for my boss, who was expecting me to work through at least August. That gives me about a week to get everyone else in the lab trained on the tasks that I'm responsible for. I was supposed to have two months.

  So you may not see a lot of me around the site for a while. I'll still be here, performing my moderator-type duties, but it'll most likely be behind the scenes stuff. I'm utterly at a loss for how to describe what I'm feeling. You never really know how to react when you find out that one of your dreams is coming true. The fine folks at GameSpot have already given me that opportunity once when they agreed to let me test my mettle at reviewing games. If things had gone just the slightest bit differently, and moving to California had been a feasible option for me, I'd be on an entirely different career path, living an entirely different dream. And that would have been amazing. But working freelance for a great site like this one and going to medical school is more than I ever really could have wanted.

  • Posted Jul 9, 2008 9:07 am PT
  • Category: Other
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