Today was another pickup mission! Another one of the students doing their MS in SIUE (where my bro studies) had come to Hyderabad just the other day, and guess what? My brother sent things via her! Yeah, that's pretty common anyways, people send things for their parents/relatives back in India via friends leaving to India! So what were those things? Where was the pickup point? Read on!

Oh yeah, that's "Reeft Punk" btw.. my avatar when I ride on the bike The helmet with no Visor gives the cool, winged helmet feel to it, and the shades block the dust completely (there is a LOT of dust in HYD, eyes get destroyed). Oh and always have my iPod on whenever riding

*The Destination!

The destination was also quite far away this time! (it's like a mandatory condition that the friend's house should be really far away) Luckily it was not as far away as the previous one, and this time it was on the opposite side of the city. The complete path is on the Highway!! That's the best part of it, finally got a chance to ride on the Highway (for a long distance) Enjoyed the ride a lot I must say.. but don't get too joyful! Things can get really dangerous. Good thing it was not very deep into the highway, else ultra super fast trucks would have started zooming by.

The house I had to go to was in Chanda Nagar and there were many other nagars inside ChandaNagar, it was a confusing mess! I was going on a straight path and then it split into three. Let's just say that I roamed 3Kms ("gullies" and all), for 15 minutes of every path. AND the last one was the right place Ofcourse, it always has to be the last place! (stupid Murphy and his law)

*The Package!

So I finally reached the house, (ofcourse with a lot of assist over the phone from Pratibha didi ) and there I was greeted to THIS chunk of awesomeness! Just look at towering package! I put everything into my bag, and also gave the things that I prepared for my brother.. made a complete DVD (along with labels and Covers) Took me around 3 months to edit the 3hr + Video (along with handpicked BGM etc ) And another DVD with all the pictures taken when he was not here. I also gave the 1 GB DDr ram that I had lying around here, with no use at all.

Then Sat there for a while talked a bit with Pratibha didi, got to know a few things about how they all saw my bro After talking for about an hour or so (and after eating 2 Ferrero Rochers! ) I started the return journey. It's getting dark very soon now a days, was pretty dark by 6PM itself! Reached home in under an hour and was ready to...

*Layeth the SmakethDown!

I guess I already told you all about how my brother is a deal finder and always tries to get things for... not the standard price Lemme write down the things with their price and how he got them for that much! Ok, without further ado, here are the things!

As you can see.. There are 4 PS3 games

· LittleBigPlanet - $39 (Amazon Coupons)

· Resistance 2 Collector's Edition - $59 (Offer in Amazon)

· Heavenly Sword - $19 (Amazon again )

· UT III - $19 ( $21 with tax, Walmart )

And then there are two BD Movies too!

· Hulk Limited Edition - $16

· TDK 2-Disc Special Edition - $10

Both from Columbia house, don't ask me HOW though

What? You thought that was all ? Now have a look here!

The first 3 games are from the buy 2 get 1 free GameStop offer that was up not too long ago. And remaining are form Amazon

· Pikmin 1 - $24.99

· Pikmin 2 - $39.99

· LoZ: TP - $44.99

· No More Heroes - $14.99

· Wario Land : Shake it - $29.95

· Mercury Meltdown : Revolutions - $9.95

Yeah! That's 5 Wii/GC games in there! Can't wait to start playing them all, hehe.. just need Luigi's Mansion, SMS, and Eternal Darkness now

Here is a panoramic shot of everything in one pic! (two pics stitched together)

Huh? It seems Mr.Ephelant seems to have found something.. what's that? AppleSeed : DuesEx Machina DVD and PURE for PC! (for JUST $5! )

So that's it for this pickup mission! Sure was exhausting! Came home, took pics and then posted the blogs, that's all what I did this day.. now off to sleep!

As a Special gift here is another nice shot of the whole of the whole package!

So, i've finally got some hands on time with Wii Music today, but I was not the first one to get their "hands on" it. I made my mom have the honour of being the first to play the game, with me and dad watching as she played

The game started with no menu's, it had the tutor appear, and teach the basic 4 ways of operating the instruments in the game. My mom did all the tutorials and then played her first song! The rhythm of "twinkle twinkle" is well known to my mom (she is the one who taught me that afterall ) She did pretty good in her first ever try at playing instruments using the wii mote (she used to play real instruments back in her days). How did it go? well here is a Video

Youtube HQ Video HERE

After that..mom and dad, went on playing for hours and had real fun making music and seeing their music being played on the BG, as they played the different instruments. (your previous plays add to the whole arrangement, automatically) soon they had done a whole 2x3 person band music of DoReMe (another one my mom and dad know, thanks to "The Sound of Music" ) well, it was good but not... how do I say this... video worthy However the amount of happiness and joy my parents had , was more than worth it to give it a 100 popularity points

Later I sat and experimented with a few things, wanted to see if I could do some custom changes to songs I know. I actually wanted to play the SMB 1-1 song.. so to unlock it, went on playing, soon I unlocked 47 songs but SMB song was no where to be found

One thing Wii Music really helped me in was, knowing the names of all those songs that I liked but never knew the names of. You know, the songs that came in Tom and jerry cartoons and some other merry melodies or Silly symphonies.

Here is a video of me doing that song which comes in that Tom and Jerry episode, you know, the one where nibbler sings the Ferero Rocher song

Youtube HQ link HERE

and here is another video of me playing a song thats OUT of this WORLD, and I think I heard this in another Tom and jerry episode.. I used this instrument I like very much, whose name I never knew till I played the game, and also dont know now, only remember that it starts with a "D" hehe.

Youtube HQ Link is be HERE is

You wont know the difference unless you've heard the original, tell me how it was I know I am no expert and it was just my first try, wanted to see how the whole thing goes. I like the second on more!

Cant wait to sit and record some videos of me playing with some beat boxer or maybe doo wopper, but, I want my SMB 1-1 theme! Played for 5h:47m today and it was awesome, unlocked 47 songs, SMB 1-1 not included, played only 4 songs till now though

P.S : Btw, you have to hand it to the guys who do the Wii game musics, I mean, everyone of those Menu Musics are so soothing and relaxing, they are some of the best musics I have heard in recent times, the one that comes when you save a video is just too good, they are many in other Wii branded games too, and ofcource SMG also has some good music.

All in all.. I love Nintendo's music

Today was Eid, (Happy Eid to all! ) Hence a holiday. So I decided I make most of this time and went to my brother's friend's house where he sent things that he bought in US. And these are just not normal purchases, everything was a special Deal...

*Point A to B

The journey was 60KM long and as usual I travelled via my lovely bike. Was happy to see that the traffic was no where near to what you see 90% of times here (and trust me, you'd never want to drive with that horrible traffic ) So I reached there and look at what I picked up!

Oooh yeah! Thats a lotta BDs and DVDs lemme list em.

BDs

1. Iron Man Limited edition
2. Journey to the Center of the Earth
3. Kung fu Panda
4. Batman Begins

DVDs

1. Predator
2. Independance Day
3. The Day After Tomorrow

And theres a PSN card and also a Fischer Price Cartoon DVD, that DVD was free. will see it... justcoz

As for the BDs, My brother bought it in a Buy 1 get 1 free offer from columbia house so Iron Man is the one he bought and BB is the free one, and I discovered that KungFu Panda was accidentall listed for "free" and ordered that ASAP, hehe (got a mail saying it was cancelled and then a "sorry, take it" later )

And Journey to the Center of the earth, just now I and my parents watched, it was a great movie.. I mean the BD comes with 4 pairs of 3D glasses and Both 3D and 2D versions on the Same disc .. AND a "digital copy" on a dvd, which I guess is a avi version or something of the whole movie. It has a CD key for it and everything, I dont know why it was give, but oh well. thats awesome, its 3 movie versions in 1!

The 3D effects did infact feel 3D-ish, and luckily it was more and better than Superman Returns (yeah, I saw that in 3D... in IMAX, lol)

As for the DVDs. I and my bro have a plan on buying almost all those old movies that we watched and loved. And with our complete Home theater set-up disaster movies with the extra blasts and eveything are top priority Ofcourse, its not like he bought all for direct price, my brother being the deal guy he is, always bought em in such a way that theres profits o matter whats, hehe

He IMed me the other day saying he bought Ace Ventura Double Pack! and he wont send it.. that !@#!#

*Point B to C

Since I cae oh so far to take those things, I made sure that I made most of the milage and visited nearby shopping areas, so I went to the computer heaven of Andhra pradesh (CTC ) and first visited the Book depot there, its one of the hugest book selling place here.

First thing I saw was a "Guiness Book 2008" book and I immediately remembered this Story in GS (mine is 10th comment) I asked the guy if he had other versions and he said "I dont know" So I went deep into the shop, searching for new MAD mag issues (nope, still no issues, since 2+ years) and looking at various Amar Chitra Katah Books.

and Lo Behold What do I see?

Oh yeah! I got that thing.. I just couldnt help myself, but I just love General knowledge...as I put it

"I am always on a trivial pursuit for trivia"

As much as I love stories, I mostly love books that are information based, than novels and stuffs, have a ultra huge collection of magazines and stuff (8+ years of 2+ mag subscriptions ). Once I took a look at the book I saw so many things that I would just eat away, so many things that you wouldnt necessarily find written in articles all around the place, so it was an instant buy!

Official Price 1300 got it for 1100

As for the other thing its a DK multimedia (remember, I hate I love maths?) CD on Human body which I bought for my uncle who runs a big tutorial. His methods of teaching are very homely and unique. He already had an old version of the thing which he used to show to students and teach but the disc got corrupt so I bought this new version (also compatible with Xp! )

*Alternate Path

Now instead of going home (Point A) from this place... I took a detour and encountered a shop which... sells games! I just tried my luck and asked them.. "left 4 dead hai kya?" (Do you have l4d?) and BAM... he said yes and got it! Woot! I was waiting to get my hands on this thing since a long time and I finally have it. So yeah.. if you are an indian and waiting for the game, just go and get it.. its out!

Just saw the opening cinematic, sure did describe what kind of experience Valve was planning for gamers to have. Now... I wonder if my first playthrough itself should be on Co-op or SP...

and Yeah my Steam ID is Reetesh. add me if you want to play along sometime

*To Point A, and Feorgotting

What? You never heard of Feorgotting? Well.. it could be because.. I made it up The thing is that, when coming back, I was wondering if I "put the CD back in after checking it" at the book shop (DK CD) And then I was thinking if put my Card back into the wallet after paying the bill. (even though at one point I remembered doing it) Soon, I started feeling that I checked for it and then removed it and didnt put it back in

Such kinds of loops went on happening as I rode back to point A, actually, this happens a LOT to me, I keep forgetting such things, JUST so that I can worry about it..its like there are two brains inside me

I coined this phenomenon as "fear+forgetting = feorgotting" always forgetting and getting that "fear" inside you if things were done right or not.

perfect example "Did I lock the doors while leaving or not"

*Mission Complete

So yeah, I came back took these pics, emptied around 70GB of HDD space, reorganized a lot of files, installed L4D, saw journey to the center of the earth and then.. wrote this! Thats all for this entry, oh yeah! did I forget to tell you theres a Wii Music there too!?

I dont know about you, but the game sold itself to me the instant I saw that demo by .. no not ravi, but this guy, J.C.Rodrigo Well, to be honest, I bought the game even before I saw the video, I just love psuedo music making games or what ever you want to call it (Passive Reactive Rhythm game etc etc) and I know that my mom will also like it, so why not buy it, and hey it has SMB 1-1 Music in it!!

See you soon then, lets hope theres more coming.. I heard TDK BD has come out today

Pragnya is the name of my college's "Tech Fest" The story of how this thing started itself is some 100 pages story, so lets not get to it At the end, it indeed "started off" and was its 3rd and final day. I am one of the 4 organizers of the "Lan Gaming" event for the fest. Its a 3 day event, being held all day long and that too in a lab of our college.

The games included in the Lan Gaming event are CounterStrike 1.6 (obviously ) , NFS MW, FIFA 08, Warcraft III (DotA) , and Quake III. The QIII in there, was there because of my request. I never see UT or QIII in any of the events of other college's, so I just put it there for players like me We planned to have Tournaments for CS and NFS, everything else was planned to be a regular "friendly" match which means that we basically set up all the systems in lan and the people visiting could play on Lan connected systems for cheap and have fun (generating income for the prizes)

Out of the 4, I and another person were like the main people handling the games and systems etc etc. I was there helping with all the hardware and networking things, being a college computer lab, we faced bazillions of problems, I was so happy that everyone of those problems we faced was easily fixable for me (not that the problems themselves were not too big ) All 4 of us spent the first 3 days of the week assembling, installing all games and stuffs on the systems. When the event actually started one of us was the registrations handler, the other was seeing all formalities and coordinating things, I was the NFS referee the other was the CS referee.

We organizers have "black t-shirts" and the simple volunteers who came in during the events were the "white shirts" once again showing that "Black is 1337 choice" So yeah, the white shirts were there to help us monitor the tournament matches, noting down timings etc etc. Really helpful bunch I must say, made new friends too!

On the first day I and another one of the organizers had to run up and down the college building for almost an hour to get the permissions letter signed by 4 different people out of which one was not available for 45 minutes. In The end however, we got signatures of one Associate professor, two Head of Departments and our principal to formally "get permission" for doing the thing and take responsibility for it.

I am trying to start "cut-short"-ing my blogs now, so that I can write things faster.. so lets just skip the majillion points of trivial details (in the inside, I don't think of them as trivial ) and skip to the main points!

One small point is that we allowed only the playing people inside the room, so there were 2 CS Clans and 4 NFS players in the room at any point and all others waiting outside in the waiting room, because all responsibility for the things in the lab was on us and we dont want nothing to be getting lost now, dont we?

*Satisfaction!

For the first time in our college's 10 year history a Lan Gaming tournament was conducted and I was very happy to be a part of it, and most of all, I was happy that I was a "big guy" in the whole thing, as I now had a part in making the thing as fair as possible. With no "college partiality", etc etc. I am happy to say that the whole thing went smoothly. Every match was under my observation and I didn't find anything objectionable being done, Its not like I had to go there and tell them to not do something wrong, everything was being done in a very fair manner. I was just making sure everything was going right or not by double checking everyone's stats. (self satisfaction)

*Sportsmanship.

I was actually thinking that I would come across a lot of un-sportsman people who would... you know do "un-sportsman" things and complain a lot at the end of the matches, but NO. They understood that we were on college systems, which are not built for total gaming, understood that there was lag and EVERYONE was under the same condition. Also they were very cool about going according to the rules that I set. They were not bothered by the delays and were patient enough to wait till everything was fixed! Its great to see people like that participating. One of the participants is in top 10 of the state, a very good national level player too. He was there helping us , after finishing his matches by setting up some systems and giving bits of info on how other colleges organized things.

*Collision Detection

The only thing that I found wrong in the whole event was that almost every participant in the NFS event went :O after hearing that there would be collision detection in the races. I've read the whole WCG rules and know that its "off" in their games. But I don't see any point in having a "LAN" game and turning collision detection off.

I was telling them "Why not just play on any non lan system without traffic or bots and we will note down your times" it's the same thing as not having collision detection. They were worried about the race start mainly, as NFS puts 4 players in a 2x2 order (hence back people hitting front people etc) but I told that "that's the way it rolls" you can't come all the way and say it's a LAN event and have a sissy "no collision detection" event. I told them its an "underground" event, so forget about world standards.

We had one volunteer observing each of the 4 simultaneous participants and made sure that no one did any intentional crashes.

*Fairness

The whole event was as fair as possible, Out of the qualified Semi-finalists we divided people accordingly, so that we don't see a final in the semis itself, and also such that the least tier people don't play with all the first tier people.

There was no HUGE a gap between people and no one had any complaints Due to some technical difficulties we had to make some changes and the competitors accepted without raising a fuss about it.

*The Moneh!

We've had over 100 Participants, with ~65 for NFS and 11 Clans for CS. The participation number was quite good! Not only was this our first Lan Gaming event, but due to some mistake the event was not even mentioned in our event's website or the poster. In other colleges its around 250 or something, so relatively we did pretty good! All registration money was in the hands of the person who handled the registration. I always worry when it comes to money matters. The main thing being the doubt if the person who is collecting is a honest person or not. In almost every event I've seen till now, there were people who kept eating some of the money. I was having my doubts if there would be one now too.

But all these days working with them and seeing how they behaved, I was assured that they are good people and not someone who would eat away the earnings of the event. Not only that, but also the organizers of all the other events and the main co-ordinators are cool people with no intention of cheating out any of the money into their own pockets.

Maybe its because this is the "Tech fest" and not the college's "cultural fest". Why does it matter? Because every event is something related to things like paper presentations, programming competitions Robotics etc. so that means that only geeks and nerds are the organizers Not those meat heads, who somehow just by seeing you can say that will do something like that.

*What to DO with the Monnies.

Once everything was collected and registrations were closed, all the money was given to the appropriate authorities. The college decided that they keep 30% of the earnings and we use the remaining for the prize money... we had to reduce the NFS and CS prize a bit because of this (we were giving 1st and 2nd prize ) but the participants were cool with that.

*NFS Rules

The NFS Finals was won by the person in blue sitting on the far left. It sure was a great match, I planned the finals' scores in such a way that any mistake can lead to a total turnover of points and make the one in lead, loose the game. We faced a lot of problems during the finals as one of the connected system was always closing automatically as soon as the match started. We tried several combinations of 4 computers and after a lot of trials somehow got everything working smoothly.

The first Circuit race was 20 minutes long and tested the stamina of everyone, next one was a curvaceous sprint testing the players control and handling, then the third was a traffic filled collision having drag race. Drag is something everyone has trouble finishing, and it felt awesome seeing them play like that, going under the truck and all

*End

The CS winners had to leave because they had another tournament, after trying a lot to try and get them the certificate and prize before hand, and not succeeding I gave them the prize money out my pocket and asked them to leave for their tournament (for which they paid a lot to register and were getting late ) I took their prize money for myself

The certificates could not be given to the winners as the tournament ended at 2 PM and certificates were written and locked by 1PM. They will however get it on Monday

*Other things!

Well, I first of all used one of my designs to make a poster for the Lan Gaming event. Made this in under 20 minutes, and it sure caught everyone's attention Other than that, took print outs of tables that I made to note down all the preliminary rounds' timings. Helped in framing questions for the "Tech Quiz" and some general help here and there too. All organizers got free lunch everyday too! The lunch was excellent in our canteen. And it felt great that we all organizers were being rewarded like that.

We spent 3 days installting various games in all the systems, and today when it ended, we spent around an hour deleting every game from every system in a synchronised and quick manner, the work was done leaving now trace of it ever happening, just so that people dont sit and play those games during normal lab sessions, hehe.

Well, I think I am missing some details but I guess this is more than enough, will keep making shorter posts if possible, hehe. All in all, the event was awesome and it had a great surprise in the end which I will save for later. It was the first time our tech fest was so huge (only the cultural fest was a big thing, till now) it did go pretty well, but will surely be better next time! There were many things wrong with the timing and promotion and (lack of) sponsorship for this event.

Any doubts or anything, feel free to ask

Heres the poster I made

Ever since I was introduced to the concept of blogging by GS(when it revamped everything way back when), I used to think of it as a online dairy with great archiving methods. I titled my journal "My gaming(life) journal" and since then planned on making this place where I would have a record of everything that I did since my Introduction to gaming till "the present time".

I started writing, I dont think at first many people read it, but later, as I went on writing, there came the soapbox feature and I got selected into it. since then I tried more to make things seem more streamlined , partitioned and always have accompanying images related to the contex, something to be atleast a bit close to something that would satisfy GS's expectations.

*Slow, Slow

But the thing is that I only made these posts like once in 3 months or something, basically because I wouldnt want to start spamming the soapbox reel, and its somewhat time consuming Then there is the thing that I wanted to first come to the present timeline in my journal and then start writing completely about games I am playing right now. hence stopping myself from writing anything other than those editorials (some really exceptional cases I posted other things)

Hence my primary type of interaction with all my friends in GS was mostly one way, with me going to each and every friends blog, checking them everyday and commenting there and having fun commuting with all of you here. I almost stopped commuting in forums too. All these years, most part of the day was spent talking and commuting in GS alone. Its like it was an integral part of my life.

Other than a few reserved forums I dont post much now a day... and recently I have been getting too busy and not watching the friends blogs too..

*Experiments and Result 

Lets just say I experimented with some ideas and adventured to the outside world, I met a lot of new people in these 6+months of outside world adventures and had fun.. but every instant reminded me of some other instance that I experienced in GS.

Then I started thinking that over 5.5 years I've been in GS I've shared a lot of memorable moments here and its high time I start "participating" in the whole community thing and "write stuff"

I mean things like Normal Day to Day gaming blogs, because.. well I guess most of you might be thinking that I dont even play games now a days

Much like many users here, Reetesh is also a multi-faceted phenomenon.

I may not be a super buyer like @gagan21, @lik or @Guuthulhu but I still buy and play games often.. and I've got a huge stockpile of old and incomplete games that I always play every now and then. Theres always a game that I am playing and trying to complete, so I will keep writing about my experiences here from now on instead of.. well.. bothering and showering mails at a certain someone

Well, if you saw my Blog Header then you would have seen that I also love watching anime/reading manga just like @Sm2099 ,@o0kami, @bulletsword and @jeff537665 so theres some more things I can share with you all everynow and then.

Also will be writing something silly, but not as good as @31160618 I guess, also some anger venting ones like @u1 does and sometimes informative blogs like @chikahiro and @Bozanimal do. and Maybe some crazy "real life" things like @mufujifi does

Well, lets just hope I actually start venting my thoughts and not think of the consequences beforehand (often over estimated) and stop mid-way!

*Whats Holding me Back

The only thing that has been preventing me from doing so (other than the rule I put) is the fact that GS has very bad archiving mechanism for its blogs, its just "post post post", you cannot sort by tag you cannot even see a full small list of blogs you posted now in the "new"  version. I cannot see posts by date, I cannot oragnize them in any way. So this becomes very cumbersome.. I cannot even look at the first post I made right now. I wonder whats the case for you all with 100+ posts. GS is like a storage dump, but not something that allows for proper archiving like a "journal" does. If I start posting rapidly now, I wont be able to access my old posts well.. it gets too tiresome!

It also doesnt allow Youtube Video embeds, and many other things leading to double and unnecessary work . I just hope GS takes care about the Archiving and and other features soon.

I've somehow managed to fix the archiving problem using even longer methods, but it gets the work done

So yeah, thats what I've been thinking basically, just hope I can start writing short and quick updates every now and then at GS too. I mean, most of my good friends are even doubting if I do anything now a days  

So see you soon! Lemme see how it works.. and I was wondering if you all are interested in knowing what I actually play and do. Other than come and comment in your blogs, hehe.

P.S.: I am on twitter! if anyone of you are there lemme know!

Hello again everyone! Welcome to another entry in my 3 year old journal where I have been recap-ing the different stages of my gaming (life). Last time I talked about how PSone taught me many things. Things like "Know before you buy" and "Don't fall for franchise".

This time, I will talk about different rules that I and my brother set, to make good purchase decision and to enjoy them to their fullest. These weren't things that we sat and carved onto stones or something, they were things which we did by learning from experience. Something like how the cavemen learnt "red hot air, bad", "chanting and running in circles, GOOD"

But of course there were times when cavemen burnt themselves out of curiosity and started swinging their hips instead of only jumping around. Similarly, we too did a lot of things like that. Let's have a look!

The Rules

*I OK, U OK... Buy OK

Ever since the NES era, we always scrutinized every cartridge before buying it. Back then, we didn't even know of a word called "review" it was all "word of the mouth" or we decided by looking at the pictures on the cartridge and maybe asking the shop person to keep it in the demo console and let us play it. In the later stages, shops selling PC/PSone games were very far away, so whenever we went out for shopping, we bought atleast 3 games. We never knew what games we would buy before reaching the place. It was just a trip to the shop and then "see what they have" and select the best.

I, being the younger and more excitable one would always go "ooooh !!!" for every other flashy game and then my brother would put me back to my senses, telling me why buying that would be a bad decision. The "cost" factor would play the biggest role, with the question being "Is the game worth X Rupees?"

My brother could easily figure out which one was a bad game and which one was worth purchasing, so I would first search around and then pick out some games. The final screening was done by my bro where he would select the games which he felt were worth buying. I would always try to use my puppy face and make him say yes to other games.. but he was almost always firm on his decision. Why "almost" you ask? Well, there were times when I pleaded very much and he gave in, or times when I would circumvent the system and use my puppy face on parents Which ofcourse, lead to most of the things listed in the previous entry.

All those reasons he used to give for not buying a game are still stuck in my head. I always ask myself "what would bro say" before buying anything and I can happily say that it has saved me from many bad decisions!

*2 heads are...more than 1?

No matter which game, if it had Co-op in it, we would always sit together and play, even if one of us didn't like the game. This lead to many sessions of me "borrowing" my brother's lives in Contra, to running away quickly to get that slice of pizza However, I later started leaving the pizza for my bro if the health was low.

Even during the times when we were glued to the PC, we would always sit together and play games, be it SP or Co-op based. I remember sitting and playing games like "Thrash It" and "Neighbours from hell" with my brother. Even strategy and FPS games we played together. Things like "What should be the entry price for the park" in RCT to "Go this way. No, that way" in Quake III

Another silly little thing was that I always took the 1p in every game, no matter what. Being the small one sure did get you what you wanted I used to feel that being 1p gives you extra powers. During the Atari days, even though I was the one who would always break the controllers, I demanded that I get the good and new one every time I play. Which my brother always agreed to, only after he gave me a nice explanation on how sensitive the controller was and that I should not break it.

*Don't Play What the other's playing!

We always played games together, if it was not a co-op game, one would sit and watch the other play, and I was usually the one sitting and watching, as I could never imagine myself playing games like Jurassic park on NES or Nightmare Creatures on PC. Till the PSone era, games basically had no "story". Those games would just last for one session, and were usually brainlessly simple, yet very fun.

But then came games which required memory cards as they were longer than, say, 10hrs in game play. From this time on, we started playing games at different times. And I don't know how and why, but we always had this thing where I played one game and my brother played something else. I.e if I played Spyro, he would play Crash Bandicoot. I played DMC, he played PoP, I played MGS and my brother played Splinter Cell games.

There were times when I went "MGS came before Splinter cell, SC is a copy" (same for DMC- PoP ) but that was not the reason why we didn't play the other game, there was this mutual understanding between us and we automatically stayed away from playing the other's game. But, almost always, I would sit and watch when my bro played.

The Rules Be Bending!

We have been playing games together for 10 years now. It was obvious that our tastes were similar, we knew there would be one fine day when things will start getting messy. But luckily the first game where we both played the main story separately never got us into arguments. It was DigiMon Digital card battle. The combined gameplay time of us both was more than 300hrs for that game. Time slicing was implemented so that both would get good time to play.

*The Game Arrives!

But soon it came... what was it? It was TOMBA2! One fine day I stumbled upon the game while vacationing in Saudi Arabia. Without a moment of doubt, I bought it telling bro that it is a sequel to an awesome game I already played. I had to bend the rules here, by telling him how awesome the first one was , adding all kinds of adjectives to the game

But all that had a reverse effect! When we finally bought and started playing it, my brother told that he will play the game first, because he too seemed to like it. (He did see tomba back when we first played it, but didn't play the whole thing like me) And with him saying that he will play it first, I went

I was like "I want to play it! I was the one who played the first game, lemme play the second game too"
Then he said "You can play it too, it's just that I will play it first"

*I Play, U Play... Who Play First?

I knew that I will be playing it later, but the fact that he was going to play it first did something inside me, that lead to total unrest and left me watching the starting of the game with "sad-face". This was when everything changed, we played the game one after the other, fixing exactly 1.5 hr for each. Since it was the vacations all we did was sit and play, daily. Just when the 1.5hr session would reach its end, the next player would stand near the door and show himself so that the player can save the game and get ready to shift

Haha, it sure was a different experience, we would always spy during the ending times and see who got further into the game, just for some self satisfaction. After a few days of playing like that, we knew that the game was nearing to an end, and the heat was ON.. I and my brother played like there was no tomorrow to get one step closer to the end.

Was it because of me getting the first alternating chance or me playing quickly? I don't remember, but one thing I do remember.. I was the one to finish the game first. And OMG the joy was overwhelming. Not only because, one of the best games I ever played was completed, but also because

"I beat you to the end, BRO!"

I just stood up and started running here and there after completing the game, and showing off my to brother I sure was a pesky kid back then, hehe. After that, during the last parts of my brother's game, I sat beside him and watch silently. It was like one of those cartoons where a character plays poker and the other nods the head saying "no". I always tried my best not to answer the puzzles, as answering one would lead to the completion of game not being a "complete achievement" for my bro, and I know that it will annoy him completely.

So what happened when my brother ended the game?

I was sitting there, silently watching the last battle, and my brother was fighting the intense fight.. and as soon as he finished, I was sitting there, smiling with all my teeth shown I was showing more happiness than my brother.. you could say my smile could have easily be taken as a smirk and MAYBE would have caused the number of teeth to decrease too, if the other person was not my brother

Well, In the end, I can confidently say that, all things aside, both enjoyed playing the game. How can I say that? Well, we both beat the first game (me for the second time) after playing Tomba2, and then beat Tomba2 after playing Tomba1 for that special thing that it does when a High AP Tomba1 save exists in same mem card! The game itself was really good and unique, just as good as Tomba1 was, talking about that here would double this posts length easily, so let's keep it for later

Until next time..

I am sure many of you reading this, with/without Siblings, usually have a set of rules pertaining to you gaming habits too..what are yours?

That's all from me, next time, it'll be a post about the transition from PSone to PS2. Hope you all had a good time reading. Here's a nice video for all the trouble

Well, The taggification process that has been happening all over the GSverse has got me taggified,Bulletsword and TheIndianChild being the culprits. Now I have to Spit out some 5 things about me. so let me take this as an opportunity to tell some embarrasing old facts about me and also shamelessly brag and promote about things I have been doing, oooh yeah! Get ready!

1. Childhood

When I was a small Kid, I was nothing like how I am today,I was VERY thin/skinny whatever you like to call it and I never used to like studying,Used to be 12th among 20 people in CIass and always used to run outside and play. I and my bro along with all the kids in the neighbourhood would play things like war games and others ,where we took shaped sticks as Guns and Hid in abandoned Aluminum Sheds to take cover and shoot others, this was like when I was around 5 years old and my bro 9. Other things were like roaming around in the neighbourHood and playing Goty-Billa's (no, nothing to do with Game of the Year ) Its a game with marbles where we have to try and shoot others Marbles with ours so as to make them fall inside a dug hole on the ground (we used to have non-permanet roads everywhere) I think other Indians here would easily understand what I am talking about

Other than I and my Bro used to Collect Stickers a LOT, and there was this sticker game where all used to throw their stickers in air and the one whose sticker landed on the picture side would get everyone else's sticker and everyone used to be so seriously involved in this game that,one used to select proper stickers with right size and weigth by observing the wind and everything and there were some"legendary stickers" that we used to hunt for and challenge man, those were really fun days, roaming around in the block and challenging other sticker playing kids for their stickers. and this was when I was around 8.

Oh yeah, I used to play Cricket also, and I was the "No Runs but hit boundaries" kinda guy who used to not run at all and only see for boundaries I Can say I played pretty well too

Hah, If I wanted I can keep going on with my childhood filled things for the Whole blog Now onto the other things.

2. Academics

Till Third grade, my schools were very far away from home and I remember that I used to cry always on the first day of school in every new school And in my new school in Second Grade, the campus was very big, I don't remember actually what happened, but I kept searching for my CIass,found it and sat there in the last bench all sad and everything. Soon attendance time came but my name was not there in the attendance list.So the teacher asked me, who I was. I said I was the new kid, and after a bit of asking the clerk and everything they realized that I was in the WRONG CIass Soon the clerk took me to the right CIass room and I was greeted nicely like all 2nd grade people are greeted, by making me stand and all singing some "welcome" song No wonder the people in the other CIass looked to grown up and formal type, they were 3rd grade or something.

After I turned 9 years old, there was some kind of transformation in me, I turned from being the run-around-&-play-but-not-good-at-studies kind of kid to Sit-and-play-at-home-learn-new-things-and-be-VERY-good-at-studies kinda kid. I still remember the first time this thing happened.

When I came to HYD , I joined the school late(being the transfer student). I took notes from my soon to be CIass ates beforehand (the CIass teacher gives the notes when a new student comes, by taking them from the good students, that's how it works here in India ) Then on the first day came to CIass there was a Oral test on the Q&As from one chapter(White washing of Tom Sawyer ). The teacher asked me a question and I was able to answer it correctly, not only that, but also all the other questions too Everyone was shocked and wondered if I was from another school in the same area.

After that till my 10th grade it has always been either CIass 1st or 2nd for me. Getting 100% in maths and very good in almost everything else too Even though I used to not read a lot, I kinda got good scores.Usually, what the teachers used to teach in CIass would get stuck in my head and hence I was able to do things with less preparations.

And I absolutely don't like By-hearting(AKA Battifying/Ratt-na) Also I don't like doing reverse engg. In MCQs and finding the answers without knowing actually whats happening. Because of that stupid habit of mine, I am very good at Descriptive type papers and not so good at MCQs

Oh yeah, and I don't like Coaching/Tuition Centers AT ALL. I feel like they are factories and they give some standard things to students and they are made into brainless zombies.

As for non studies thing, I've been getting 1st/2nd in all essay writing and elocution competitions since I was 9 (English and Hindi ) now don't be thinking all the other kids were dumb or something some of my CIass mates are in top level colleges in State/India now :O (even me ofcourse )

Hmm. Now aboot computers

3.Computers

You might be surprised to know that in some of my friend circles, I am known as a "computer guy" and they don't even know that I like games Almost everyday I get a call or two from close/distant friends and help them with their computer problems.I've already mentioned in my old blogs about the things I did with computer and all those things

As for computer related things I know.. here is a small list.

LOGO - Was pretty good at it, learnt it when I was 9 years old.
BASIC - Learnt it when I was 10 years old, but didn't exactly "master" it.
HTML and FLASH - Learnt it on my own reading books and stuff when I was 12-13 years old. Made some funky websites and animation back then

After all that my 9th CIass came from when I went more studies oriented type so didn't learn anything new on my own till I was 17! After that I started learning more of such things rather than exploring OS possibilities(which I did in those gaps). I can say I am pretty good at all of these

C,C++ and of course PS I think almost everyone at present is kinda good at PhotoEditing

Presently learning Java and ASM programming, loving em both! But Have more fun during ASM programming, for some strange reason, the fact that I am talking in a language that is more easily understood by computer than the rest, makes me really TALK more to it, lol.

Yeah I am crazy like that, talking to my computer and calling it names and stuff

Oh yeah and I am also on my Path to become a Oracle Certified Professional, Recently finished my 1st exam,82% woot!

Also did some batch programmin on Windows, made some shutdown timers, auto close softwares for media players and other things that make my life easier. Also assigned them to my customisable MM Keyboard and everything is done at the touch of a button

Oh yeah and I love reading about Computer hardware and how things work, a LOT. Its very interesting to see how all of it was made, trying to emulate how exactly human body works, its almost like they always had biologists guiding them when the advanced computers were made.

Theres more to tell, but I think that's enough for some bragging

4.No Replay

I've never replayed a game after completing it (ofcourse,after the SNES era, SMB etc, were always replayable), when I first play a game, I play it at a slow pace , enjoying everything that the game has to offer. And most of the times when I complete it, its very near to 100%.

If its not 100% then 90% of the times its because the extra things are tedious tasks that feel more like a chore than enjoyment. GTA being the best example with those Rampages and stuff, I mean, doing 1 -5 is fun, but all 25? It feels more like a chore to just get that silly "100%" in the completion stat. Also if we leave it like that, somefine day when I am in the mood to play GTA, I will have those Rampages to kill time with. Hence leaving them like that is good

5.The Internet

Internet first started commercially for home use at around 1999 or something, and just when it first started in our state, We took internet for our home. I remember the first websites I went were "Cartoonnetwork.com" and "Games.com" I also found "Gamespotter.com" I don't know how... after that I came across Gamespot.com. And since then I can say, I've been coming to GS regularly.

At first the internet was 33.6K dialup and all so doing internet was rather tiresome, so it was like, once in a week or so I visited GS, and also we had to use less of the internet as it costed not only the telephone bill but also those internet charges AND the line would be engaged if we used internet. Hence we used to go online very less.

Then we got a dedicated line setup just for the internet (@ 1 Rupee) and started using internet regularly (and me coming to GS regularly started from then). And thus ~ HALF of my life I've been coming to GS and in that Half you can say, the second half I started coming to GS Daily, even when I was on vacations , in some other country

I don't know what or why, but GS has been a very integral part of my life, and its where I learnt many things and had lots and lots of fun. Even after the whole JeffG issue and most people leaving the place, for some reason something is holding me here, I think its all the great friends that I've made here. Knowing all of you and talking has been a great pleasure!

Along with one of my Friends (SM2099) last year, we did a podcast thing for E3 , just trying out if we could sit and talk about games and not get bored, and we talked alright! For >3 hours! Lol.. we had to make the podcast in three parts and our podcast was selected by the good people at Videogamesblogger.com you can see it HERE or HERE

And recently we thought maybe we could make a blog somewhere and talk nonsense just like that, so that whatever new things we learn , others can also know its not something we are trying to make money or something like that(hence no ads) we are just trying to show our perspective to others.

And mostly because I have this blog of mine RESERVED as my special journal, that would be the place where I rant but no worries, people from Artist's café, I will still be a regular there

-------

Yup, I think that's all for self embarrassment and Shameless bragging/promoting from me So becareful people, next time you "Tag" me or try to do something funny, you are going to get Overdosed

Ah, and how can I keep quite and not "Tag" some other... so.. who shall it be?

I choose.

U1, neerajkumar_4 , yian , Bozanimal , and mnbskydoll

And since I wrote this long blog and also since 2 peopletagged me.. as extra bonuses

kenshinhimura16. thalesa7x1 PeldonPeldon

ProtegeRuckus I tag you!! Ooh yeah, you said you wont be blogging, but wait, what are you gonna do now?! Hehe (I hope you are still there )

Also AbuSharkas8 , where have you been man, hope this taggification brings you back!

Oh yeah, that's all for now, I would have written a lot more, like things about me being a Underground GS score betting Champeen, Music,anime, movies, and all, but lets leave that for some other virus infestation.. maybe...

"The GS Tag 2: Sequel to the chain that snapped em all"

Welcome once again everyone, to another entry of my continuing journal where I talk about the games that I have played in the past. Last time, I had a look back at the games for the PSone that I liked a lot. In this entry I will show you guys all those not so great games that I bought. Also, being the kid I was, I bought a lot of those franchise oriented games, which I regret buying even now. But with every such mistake I learnt a new lesson! I will talk about all those mistakes and lessons in this entry In addition to those, I will introduce you to the game that I think that was by far one of the worst games I ever played. So let's begin!

*Lesson 1: New Dimesion + old games = Bad result

Being a huge contra fan during the Nes days, I wanted to try out how they looked in 3D and bought C: the Contra Adventure for PSone, and well, it was nothing like those uber cool NES games where you had great levels, awesome music and good 'ol S gun.This was no where near fun, and what was this with the 3D thing? I mean the back view 3D gameplay was plain bad!

Lesson learnt: Games that were "super cool" in previous generation need not be as cool as they were when they are brought into the new generation with CHANGES. This theory is highly supported by another game... "First person BOMBER" anyone?

*Lesson 2: Digimons don't always do the same thing.

Next on list were many other games based on digimon.After playing Digimon Digital Card battle and having 100s of hours of fun, I started thinking every other digimon game was that cool too. And bought Digimon world 2 and Digimon Rumble arena games, both I played for some time and left off... they were nothing like card battle and were a bit boring. The rumble arena game was in theory pretty cool, we could evolve during the game, stages had some effect, but after playing it for a while realised it was TOTALLY a dud.There are so many things that active imagination can do to you, I thought of something really cool, but this was not all that great. So after a few sessions, I said bye bye to the game.

Lesson Learnt: Games based on the same franchise need not be of the same quality, they can be of different genres and hence not as good as the one that you liked. For Ex. You have Mario and then Mario's Pyjama party.

*Lesson 3: Lemon&&Orange = Citrus, but taste different.

After playing some really nice platformer games, I wanted to play more of those kinds, and Croc2 caught my attention, I saw that croc going around and saying all those "pshukao" and other sound effects as it hit others and was like "Wooow awesome, I want to play it!" and then soon, got the game. I liked the the gibberish talking thing in the game, but after that , the game's controls and camera made me have a not-so-good experience with it. The character moved VERY slowly, and because of the not so responsive controls and bad camera controls it was hard to complete some quests (like that boating thing in the first level).I tried my best to "enjoy" the game, but after a few hours of playing it, I finally gave up and shelved the game.

Lesson Learnt: Every game of the genre you like will not be as good as the games you like from that genre.There is Monster Truck Madness and then there's Big Rigs.

*Lesson 4: Beware of Franchises!

Psone really taught me that franchise (movie/cartoon etc) oriented games should not be bought unless you really really want em.... But most of the times, since I was a kid back then, I "really really" wanted the game if it had the name of the cartoon I like(d).Hence started the ever-growing list of such games in my Psone collection, most of the times I had no clue what the game was , I used to just see the title then go "OMG Captain Wonderpants!!" and get the game, then while playing, realise its some game about Captain WonderPants Ironing his ThunderPants

A good example that really happened with me was with a Rugrats game, with RUGRATS written all over it with huge letters.The game happened to be something about angelica doing girly things like shopping and stuff. I still wonder how did I ever buy that game (oh yeah, I forgot, I "really really wanted it" as it was based on a cartoon I liked back then) I played 3-4 floors of that game and then it seemed like every game was just repeating with random characters for all the minigames . so just left it after that(played 2-3 hours of it nevertheless )

More Franchise Oriented games would be games like Toystory Racer, Looney Toons Racing, and other such racers, all were the same, very much like Mario kart (which I hadn't play back then) they all had some extra modes with collecting things and timed tasks,I did have some fun with those, because of them saying their punch lines and all, but no matter what, after playing these games for some time the fun drains out, there were only a few good levels, it was not that challenging and for LTR the load times were long.

There were a lot of disney games too, games like Disney's Dinosaur, PeterPan, the LAND before time (OMG this game was ________) all were NOTHING like the movies and were pretty boring too.Then there was a Scooby Doo game, and I thought "This can't be bad!" because I played the Scooby Doo game for SNES which was pretty awesome, had graphics as good as the cartoon itself and was pretty interesting too (finding the ghost, laying a trap and then unmasking him! ). BUT, this game was NOTHING like that, it was a 2D-back-view-run-a-thon. Just saw some of the cinematic, played a few levels, and then SHELVED!

I was (and AM) a big fan of the Jungle book movies and show, and I Love the "bear necessities "song and hence I also own...."Jungle Book Rhythm n'Groove" although I didn't (and don't) own a dancepad I bought the game ( I realised afterwards it was THAT type of game, lol).Since the movies' songs were really nice and the difficulty was EASY, I just went through the whole game one song after the other and it was like revisiting that movie again.The songs were great, the dances were not and it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be

And a few new games like SHREK's Treasure hunt and Harry Potter games also I bought, all again making me wonder why I even bought them.

Lesson Learnt : Keep away from these things even you "really really" want them... only buy them.. if you "Really really really REALLLYYYY" want them.Its so clear now, why they still make games like Open season and others , people like my old self will definitely make their parents buy them (and there are going to be a LOT of kids like that) I wonder how many will buy LOST game with blind affection, it's not just the kids afteral.

*All Franchise games are not Bad

BUT, there were quite a few games that I bought, which were based on something that already existed as a cartoon, movie or some in some other media, and enjoyed. Games like Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster, it was a really interesting game, the starting logo thing by Jackie himself is still stuck in my brain "~~Radikul entatainment~~" the action in it was great,the character animations were also cool, only thing was that character likeness was...... I was wondering if that guy really was jackie chan. But well the cover did have his EXACT photo on it.

Goofy's Fun house, The game was not that good, it was very very simple and was practically the easiest game I ever played, I finished it in one sitting, but why was it good? Well it had many Goofy cartoons in them whenever one mission was completed a new cartoon was unlocked, so seeing that there was a nice reward I completed the game in one sitting. It was the game's reward that makes me thing that this game was worth it it was fun while it lasted, after wards I got a software to rip videos off the disc, and lo, I have them on PC

HotWheels Turbo racing was quite good and entertaining, it was one of those games that I always wanted to play when I had free time, for some reason it seemed cool, maybe it was because I was racing hotwheel s

*All bad games are Not Franchise oriented

All this however, doesn't mean that only franchise based games are BAD, well there are bad games in this world which have no BG and were made in the first place to be a GAME and were still BAD, how can this happen I wonder, if its some kind of Bug loaded game then maybe ok, but if its really bad, having no point at all, then why even release it? I really feel sad for the people who spent hours on that game.

This brings to the game that I mention in almost every place where I am asked about bad games, its none other than LONE SOLDIER! Oooh, such a cool name, no? Lone soldier : "I am a lone soldier going to kill you all with me guns and grenades" that's what I thought, first rambo came to my thoughts and then I thought "omg, this is going to be as cool as CONTRA, is this 3D contra? I can't wait to play it!"

So I put the game in, and the starting cinematic was this cool 3D thing in some kind of industrial place with red lighting being shown, and I was like "Ooooh so ThreeeD" then the game started. No intro of character, no Mission , no nothing, I was thrown in some waterfall type area (if my memory of this years old even is right) given a gun and then, Shooot, shoot shoot.

The character animation was the legs moved on their own accord without having relation with the distance being actually moved, the turning was like some manikin, the grenade explosions were __ there was NOTHING in the game, just walking (in a strange way) and turning (in a stranger way) and shooting blindly... and yeah, die-ing, for every minute or so. I feel like making AVGN type video of that game, or atleast, have him review that game it sure meets the characteristics to be commented by AVGN, Its BAADD really really BAAD.

Oh yeah, the game is STILL on sale I mean people really want to buy that game? For 18USD? Omg, my deepest regards for the one who actually buys it and plays it.

As for the game,I couldn't leave the game just like that, because I was feeling sad inside that I made my parents spend money on this game, so no matter what I sat and played a bit more of the game, and then after I felt I was punished enough (by having to play the game) This was the FIRST game, I used as a cup tray, and also gave it away for free.

*A new Beginning..

From this experience something new started, Whenever I bought such a game which was bad, I would punish myself by completing the game or playing it for as long as I could bare. So that I would learn not to make the same mistake, but Alas, I didn't learn from the first time.the NEXT generation was more punishing, because I went as far as Playing the Whole game whenever it was really bad, it was a bit masochistic, but, well that sure did teach me a lot and made me what I am today. (I didn't buy that transformers game or any game based anime I like)

Oh wait...... I did buy THIS GAME...

Ultimate Lesson 22: As nostalgic and fun it is to buy games by having no idea about them and experiencing them first hand.Do so only if you can justify the purchase by either getting some money back (not possible for me, as no ebay ) or if you are daring enough to play through it completely.

OR just go to the interwebz (Which was just a starting phenomenon in my locality, then) and visit sites like GS BEFORE buying a game, you will have a basic idea atleast of what type of game it is.

Well that's it for now folks meet you next time in my entry about the final games I played on me PSone before entering into the then NEXT GEN gaming.

As a closing ceremony, Here's my latest user Vid

My bro has gone back to the US for a while now , and I finally have some free time so I can tell you guys what exactly did He bring here are the answers! pic-by-pic

As Everyone easily guessed, its a WIiiiiIii (Wii code added in my profile )

• Performer: Its a Remote controlled Helicopter (We both wanted a Remote controlled flying thing since childhood )
• Bright Box Below That: A Seagate 320GB Sata HDD (along with another 320 GB Ext HDD because of which I have 26 partitions XD)
• Wii Play and Extra Nunchuk
• Uncharted: Drakes Fortune
• Super Paper Mario
• A Box with Lxxxx written on it: Its a Legacy Wooden Finish Wireless GH Controller for the PS2 with Extra Pedals!
• Another Small Box below it: A Mutli DVD collection of 50 Horror Movies!!!

• Super Mario Galaxyyyyyyy (super awesome game!)
• Transformers Special Edition DVD
• Super Mario Strikers Charged

• A special Metallica CD.
• Metroid Prime Corruption
• 4GB Kingston Pen Drive

• A Special HeadPhone set, which when USB powered has super Bass Producers that BOOM and shake at the ears (awesome in action!)

• Special Component Cable to Connect my Wii,360 and PS3 all together.(Using only for 360 and Wii)

• All those things along with more games (not in pictures) and Many Cartoon DVDs(all of which we watched) and
• Planet earth Blu-ray collection (4 Blu Ray discs of awesomeness! )
• Blue Planet DVDs
• etc, etc

Phew! That was a big list! there were more things he brought not pictured But this is all I can show

As for my Present life.... two great things happened

First of all, A video I sent to CNBC (india) was selected and aired in their Tech Show, and the prize for getting selected reached me recently and it was.....

a Nice 3rd Gen Ipod Nano I never wanted to buy one, and now I got one for free, so am enjoying it to the fullest Copied AVGN videos and TTFF(dragonForce) video that a good friend introduced me to!(I know you know who you are,Numbered person ) and all the songs I love(most of which to which I was introduced by a semi numbered person GS friend )

And Just yesterday, I went to a college's(IIIT Hyderabad's) Tech Fest (Felicity).I met my GS friend Shiben there and had an awesome time watching his office and all the cool Computer graphic things he is doing research on.

The Fest also had a EA Mobile workshop there. I just visited that place, because this was the FIRST time I ever saw anything related to gaming have such a thing.

The whole thing was basically like an advertisement to join EA Mobile games , they did show some nice and secret Spore and other videos though

I came with a friend who was telling that we should leave, as soon as the PPT ended, But I told him NO, because I knew that there would be goodies after the whole thing, and YES there was!

They told that they would ask questions and the person to answer it would get a gift. With full excitement I sat and heard the questions.

"What is the latest Burnout game, and for what platforms has it released on".......

I was like and answered it in a flash and got a Free game! I could select one of the three (C&C3,NFS MW, and MoH:A ) I took MoH because the other two I own and I already decided that I would never buy MoH

after that they asked more questions, 2nd one was

"What are the controllers in Rock Band"

Without a seconds gap even before I got back to my seat I answered it expecting another free game (well no problem if I get more, no?) and they cancelled the question, lol.

but even then I answered the 3rd question, and they were like

"No, you can't answer any more questions"

So I told the answer for the next question to a person sitting beside me and had him have the game

Afterwards they started giving T-shirts and caps, I was going to answer, but even then they didn't allow me to answer, lol. they were bascially asking easy question (but others couldn't answer them ) They were asking me to come to the place they were standing rather than sitting in the audience

well, after everything finished I went out and showed the thing to my other friends and they asked me to pose for a Pic, and well,

This is the best I could do

Well, thats it for now, and I think this will be my last timepass type blog, and I will resume my Gaming(life) blog from next post

Have fun Everyone!

Here's a Clue for something no one guessed in the last post....

I am still enjoying all those things my bro brought and if anyone knows how to get Guitar hero Games(for Ps2) in India (Without Guitar) please tell (Is this another Clue?)

Go to Previous post and see if you can point out the new ones

My bro returned home today after being in the US for more than 1.5 years..... and.... O.M.G

look at all the goodies and surprises he got me

I am still in awe..There are many more things not in pic! (like a REAL bass guitar ) My bro is sleeping for sometime because of jetlag... we will start unpacking and stuff soon!!

man, I am sooooo happy now

I got to see my dear bro after so long, and also sooo many things like a santa he brought!

Now the TRINITY is complete! I can turn on all three at the same time and travel to the other dimension and play among game characters

and yeah... I think this will go down in history as my shortest blog!

P.S: special Cookie to anyone who guesses ALL the things in there

Disclaimer: The Characters and Events depicted in this Entry are REAL. If you happen to be one of those people in the events, I say....."Hi, Nice to meet you here"

And another note: This isn't Orange Box preview /review/impressioins/conclusions etc. Its about the series of events that made me spend a lot of time just to get the thing finally working. So if you are one of the 10% of the Orange box retail population who have had problems Installing the game via the Discs,at the end you will find a cost effective solution to fix it.

-End of Notes

*The Hype

On Feb 2006 there was a news on Gamespot Saying that HL2 would soon come out, I was neither surprised nor excited. I had yet to play EP1. Ep2 was supposed to come out till "end of year"(year =2006) and after a series of Delays, to "Early 2007" and then "Summer 2007". Finally in summer they told it would ship on Oct 9th 2007. My excitement for this would have died somewhere in between, but the thing that kept me waiting for the release was This announcement that was made amidst the delay.

Orange Box and Black box(cancelled later), What was so special about them? Well, I saw a trailer for Portal and being the nerdy, brain-usage-having-game-liker I am, I became an instant fan of the game. From then on, whenever a friend or a GS staff mentioned orange box in their blogs, I would just go and say " I am getting it only for portal" Later I looked into the other games, and it increased my excitement.

Now October was near, and all those HD gameplay vids of portal were filling my HDD. The only thing in my mind was, "how much would it cost". Me being in India , The price of the games is something that often makes me not buy a game when I go to the store, because there is no prior info on the game's price and often I find out its Rs.2500/- or in that range, which might not sound much when converted to USD, but still is quite a lot. And from out of nowhere I saw a blog post by my friend in GS(who also happens to be an Indian) in which he said that the game is going to sell for Rs.999/- and that's just 25$! You can see my excitement in the comments I made

*The Purchase

And the price was really ONLY Rs.999/-

The original Release date was oct 16th but it got a bit delayed and came on oct 18th, on Oct 20th I went with my friends to IMAX theater to watch Transformers on the big screen, and I also planned on buying Orange Box that day. We enjoyed the Movie on Big screen and then as soon as we came out, I went to the gameshop in the multiplex and bought the game with no second thought.

Just like the time I got my 360, I was very much excited, my friends suggested I have a pic taken to remember this great day, and there-> you can see it

Soon after paying McDonalds a visit we started for home, the whole 15Km journey took 1 hour. Coz you know, THIS is how Indian traffic is on a VERY good day. I reached home at 11 PM and was very exhausted. So I slept just so that I could wake up the other day and have full energy to complete Portal and EP1 on the same day

*The Events Begin!

I woke up early in the morning, it was Saturday and I had the whole day to just sit and play, I started to install OB at 8:00AM and at the first setup screen I saw which games to select. The whole thing required 15GB! I had only 7 GB free in my 180GB HDD (UT,Oblivion,Dreamfall, etc take a lot of space :S ). So I selected only Portal in the beginning (as I didn't want 0 GB free). With the same enthusiasm I had when I first saw the trailer, I was watching those yellow steam bars move forward. But then .... I realized something 20 mins have passed, and my spongebob face was fading . The bar was still moving, the disc bar got filled and started over again.

And then THIS happened.

Da Da Da Daaaaaam.

I was completely _______. Only thing I could do was take a screenshot for "future references" and then I ejected the disc, surprisingly, it asked me to insert second disc, and, you can't even guess what happened, the showed up "EMPTY" and "Unformatted"

I couldn't make head or tails of anything, I bought a NEW Sealed Box and I get such Discs? I was in full despair. I saw the 2nd disc and it had a huge scratch on it, as you can see the BOX of the Orange Box was quite badly made, it had a "Cheapo" feeling to it, it was no where as good as my CoD Delux edition Box (which I got from abroad). And the box was a "5 Disc Capacity" one, hence there was Huge Empty spaces, and maybe that was the reason for the scratch.

Nevertheless I tried again, I put the First disc again, and this time it was taking a very long time to read the disc. Now even the first disc had gone bad? Luckily it was read after some minutes. And It was installing but at a speed of 1 MB per 10 mins! I just quit the setup after that.

*Steam @ 8K no good

Now you all might be wondering, "Why didn't you just download it off steam" well the thing is that, living in a developing nation has some limitations, the internet connection I have is only 128Kbps during the no-download-limit time (10PM to 7AM) and 512kbps on the remaining times (2 GB download limit). And the thing was 4 GB(only portal)

It would take me 4096*(2^10)/(16*60*60*24) = 3.034 Days of continuous download and with my limitation I have only 9 hours a day to download that would bring it to 8 days! Also steam servers are not the world's best servers either, I was getting 10-12 KBPS max download from them.

Now in total despair I started asking my friends(not the ones with whom I went to the movies, they aren't gamers, like 90% of Indians) sabout their Copies, no one had bought it till now. I immediately called the shop guy and told him about this , and then he asked me to call another number which was of the main distributors of games in the whole south Indian region I called them and they asked me things ranging from "Did you put it in a DVD drive" to "Did you try it somewhere else" Well, I did put it in a DVD drive, and I have two, it didn't work in any of them. I however, didn't try it in any other's PC. They asked me to check it in another system, so I immediately went to my cousins house who only a few months ago bought a PC, and tried it there.

Sadly it didn't work even there so I called those guys again and they told me that they will replace it that Monday, the thing being, I have to go ALL the way to that place and get it replaced :S and here comes the big part, that place it 20-25Kms away and it took and 1 hour to go just 15 kms and I also had my exams from Monday, so I told them that I would come there on Saturday(next week) to get it replaced.

I however was not happy, All I wanted was to play these games for which I waited for so long, and now I had the box right infront of my eyes but could do nothing.My whole Saturday from 8 am to 8PM was spent running around and trying to get Orange Box working. But all work but no fruits.

It was Sunday and I started asking one friend after the other about their copies, again

*Friend 1

First came Gagan, he bought a new computer and Orange box on the same day(Sunday), and EVEN HE had the same problem but the first disc was working fine for him. First disc had HL2 and EP1 he already played those,so even he was suffering now The only access to internet he had was GPRS, and he was downloading the whole eps using GPRS from his cell Since it had no limitations, he could get them installed in 4-5 days. After being unsuccessful there I asked Neeraj

*Friend 2

Neeraj too was waiting for OB since very long, being a HL freak and all and when I asked him, even he got both discs corrupt He got them replaced the same day, but even those replaced discs were NOT working! But, he being in another region of India had access to 256Kbps unlimited internet and hence was downlading all the eps (that too would take 2 days of continuous downloads, not economically, and ecologically feasible)

*All Friends Same outcome

Similarly 5 of the people I knew had the same disc problems, I was guessing the whole Indian made ones had a problem, but one friend of mine, indzman, didn't have any problems. I just couldn't understand what the problem was.

Sunday was over and now I had my exams, everyday after finishing my exams I came and asked in Indian forums if anyone's copy was working, many days passed by but no one else's worked and soon I got a reply telling me that the discs that were "corrupt" showed up fine on a Mac. He suggested the Drives were old. But I recently upgraded my firmware for both the drives. And also gagan had a BRAND new PC, it should be working in that, but it didn't!

One of the days before Saturday came, I left EP1 for install at 10PM and woke up at 7 am to check it, and only 300 MB was copied from disc it was as slow as installing from Internet

A week of Orange Box Trial and Error had gone, I was so crazy about orange box that, everything I knew was being orange, even my desktop had a complete orange feel to it. But things happened, all the excitement and dreams I had for playing orange box faded away , I remembered nothing about the games themselves, other than getting them installed, I was in a complete Irritated stage for the week.

*Replacement Time!

Saturday came and I took one of my friends with me to that far off place, as it had a huge computer shopping area in there too and we decided to buy and check prices of computery things in the market. After finding the place we were greeted by the owners and they started checking the discs, in the 1.5 hour attempt to get the thing installed we had a great talk which I wrote down HERE they were in the gaming business since very long and I got to a lot of the "other side" of gaming which deals with publishers and how they ship game to India.Both I and the owner Enjoyed talking, and after 1.5 hr when we looked at the computer screen, even the cache files didn't finish being made

He immediately opened a new orange box and it had a different packaging the discs inside were kept in paper packs, I think those guys realized the problem of scratching and packed the later things properly. I checked the installation there and it installed nicely. He gave a "retailers only" catalogue for winter Ps3 games release date(knowing Indian release dates before hand is really cool) and also a halo3 poster, which I stupidly forgot to take while leaving

*Another Misfortune

The installation was happening nicely, 1 GB was copied in Minutes.. but it again stopped at 1.5 GB I couldn't believe my eyes, I removed the discs, cleaned the things and then tried again, but to no avail and the stranger thing is that, Drive A could read disc 1 and Drive B could read Disc 2 but not the other ,for both. I was in disbelief as I saw the things working in that place.

I went on trying doing many different things till 1:30 Am, I didn't get sleep, but with the exhaustion because of driving(total 4 hours, bike) and all, I fell asleep, Even in sleep I was thinking of getting the thing to work, I woke up at 5:30 AM and resumed trying to install it, I didn't feel asleep at all, I didn't have any caffeine either.

My aim to get the thing working was above all, I forgot about everthing else

*The PLAN.

Upto now I was working normally, but after seeing what happened the prev. day my brain went in overdrive,I started using my geeky superpowers. I calculated all possible solutions.

In my first attempt I tried to create an image of the disc and then run it off image drives, but alas, the discs were only readable to certain extent, and hence read errors stopped the image from being created, after that I tried a lot of things, but all failed.

As a last ditch effort I googled again, and this time my keywords hit the spot, and I saw many people Buying NEW drives to play the game as their old drives were not reading. It was still not understandable to me. The disc is still of the same type, either DVD-R or DVD+R then why have the problems, if it uses a new type of file system my firmware upgrade should have fixed it. And also, Gagan's drive was a new one. Then I remembered that guy in the forums talking about it being read in a mac.

My mother suggested that I buy a new Drive which are worth around 1500 (more than the game). Being the "Get things done in cheapest way" guy I am, I didn't want to have another drive when the other two are working fine, just for one game.Also there was no guarantee that the new one would work (as is the case with gagan)

Soon I had a brain flash, and remembered that my friend has a dell laptop, Since it's a branded thing(unlike every other home PC I know, which are assembled) they are bound to be new and upto date in every way. I thought of creating an image there and then writing the images on normal empty Sony DVD Rs of whom I have stock. This would cost me only Rs.20/-

But then I thought that it will have copy protection, So I thought of installing the game in his laptop and copying the Cache files onto DVDs and getting them home, but I would require a Internet Connection to access steam and my friend had no connection, So I took my cell and Nokia PC suite to use GPRS for that purpose, But GPRS costs, so I searched for a way to circumvent the copy protection

30 mins of googling and I found out The Discs had no Copy Protections because of Steam and all . So I went to my friends room, and kept the discs there, when it was being read, I prayed as much as I could. And YES it was read I used Alcohol 120% and created the image, then burnt them on the DVDRs. The whole process took 1 hour and during the whole time, I, My friend, and the hostel mates were all singing and rejoicing

Everyone felt my pain and understood the sad situation I was in, and when I was finally getting it written all were happy After the writing was finished, as show of entertainment, I played a hard boss in Typing of the dead, in full uber fast typing glory and all were amazed, lol.

But soon, I thought, what if these written things are also not read? It is the file format after all! All happiness down the drain, and like a sign from god, another friend dropped by and he lives near my house.

I got another plan just in time, I asked him to stay there, and told that I will go home and try installing from the discs, IF the installation is not successful () I will ask him to get my friends laptop to my home, and then using my home made wifi network I can easily install the game in his laptop and then copy the cache files from his laptop to my PC and enjoy

*Mission Accomplished?

I left for home, and tried it immediately, and on Sunday oct 28th 1:30 PM I was FINALLY able to install the game! YES!! I called my friends and they were happy for me After that I finished installing portal in a RECORD SETTING 10 mins!

As soon as it finished installing! Nothing could stand between me and portal! Except for.... POWER CUT! Once again, a thing something you have to be accustomed to, by being in a developing nation.I played my recent addiction Tony hawk PG for DS, Awesome game.

Current Came back at 5 PM, I Finally started portal, but first I decorated my Orange Dtop which now looks like this.

~~~~~

When I started portal I couldn't believe my eyes that it was finally happening, a week of trial and errors, and two days with only 4 hours of sleep, all for a BOX and its games. And as and when I was playing all those dreams of me playing portal, Eps and TF2 were coming back, I was having a blast. With all the driving and no sleep, I was in a semi sleepy state, I spent almost 30 mins in lvl 17 for something whose answer was just beside me I was trying all this impossible things , because I was overthinking everything.

I thought of completing the game in one stretch but had to attend a party so left it at 7:30 PM I also had to read for my Next exam AND complete my LAB records, but the whole day I was busy with these things that I didn't do anything. I came back from the party thinking I would read, but I sat down and played portal

Completed the game at stroke of midnight and then heard the awesome PORTAL song! Filled with all those jargon that I like it was so cool. After finishing the game I realized that I didn't get the achievement for finishing it, as I was disconnected from steam, so I reconnected and played the ending again, and heard the song again this time, WITH ACHIEVEMENTS. I had basically every achievement except the camera one (only could do 19) for the story mode.. yes... Sorry Companion cube

Completed Portal in 3.5 hours, now off to EP1 and then EP2 and all full completion of Portal then playing TF2... for...ever?

That was how this series of misfortunate events surronding the orange box came to end with me finally getting to play the games have a blast!

*looks up* Woot, that was long, Hope this helps the people who have the same Orange Box retail problems. In simple words this is what you do.

"Take your Discs to some branded computer/laptop create an image of those discs and write them onto normal DVDrs"

Thanx for reading. Now heres the infamouse portal Song "Still Alive" Uploaded by my good Friend PeldonPeldon.

Hello Everyone This time, I will be talking about all the Extreme(Spelled Xtreme with a capital "X") Games that I played along the years.For most of us, Tony hawk defines Xtreme Games, and yeah, I am also included in that US, But there were other few games that were really good, So lets have a look at the past, present and future of Xtreme Video Games (As seen through my life , of course )

The Pre-Tony Hawk Era.

I started Gaming, when the only console we had was a ATARI 2600, now... at that time.. these "Xtreme Sports" were not that much of the "In Thing" the most extreme I can say... was the Teeter- Totter Game(Names Circus for some strange reason) where the other guys crashes into the hard ground if you miss him there was Skii-ng, but its not extreme unless there's an avalanche behind you.

Even in the NES era there were not many Xtreme games, And I don't remember playing any either . Same for the SNES, But Super Punchout was pretty Xtreme XD

Tony Hawk Cometh
(Not so Xtreme Before TH eh?)

*The Intro to TH

Then came PC gaming time, and it was in around 1999-2000 when I and my brother saw Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 Demo being shown as "Demo of the Week" on CNET's TV.com, the TV show that came in CNN (or was it BBC? don't remember exactly) After seeing that video with the character flying and going round and round in air we were excited very much! We wanted to play it very badly, so after a few months or so we got the demo (yeah, slow internet)

*The Demo that Started it all.

When we started the demo we were thinking of all those cool tricks we saw in the video.. and as soon as the game started... the controls were oh so awkward... we didn't even know how to go straight We tried a lot to play the game and reach those video levels of tricks.. but we were only in the baby-steps phase. There was a 2 min limit to the game but we could retry as much as we wanted at the end of the first day we were able to jump from ramps and do some grab tricks.

We wanted to do awesome tricks as in the video and hence played the demo almost everyday.. and within the same week... we went from 0 level to uber level now we could do awesome tricks and 360 Grab Tricks were NOTHING! We Always tried to beat the top score, and when one beat it.. the other would try to top it.. so we started playing Tony hawk like that.

NOW, we were totally addicted to tony hawk. There were so many tricks we could do and the place was also loaded with so many things to do tricks on, The concept of "GAP"s and going across them to increase the multiplier was so cool, also the different sound it gave when we cleared a gap and a different looking BLUE thing in our trick list while comboing, really added the feeling to have "more blues" in the score

There was no list of gaps or anything, we went on trying to cross any possible(and also tried the impossible) gaps, and also sometimes wanted to see if we could jump so high if we could go OUT of the locked place where we allowed to play.

All in all, this game really got us hooked, and the demo was very awesome! The thing is that we never bought the full game because you know.. at that game shops in our place were almost nonexistent.

*Spelled "Extreme" != Xtreme

But we did buy one game.. and it was Extreme Boards and Blade... and I have to tell you... WORST.Game.Ever. it was NOWHERE near tony hawk.. we only bought it because it was the only skateboarding game available (found it after a lot of searching) and I gave puppy faces(the expression that puss-in-boots gives in Shrek) to my parents to get that game! How sad I felt, that was the first game that we sold off/threw off or completely erased from memory (I don't even want to find out if its still there somewhere in the house.

After juicing out whatever we could from the THPS2 demo, we were left with emptiness inside, but this was only temporary as we got another demo soon! What was it you ask?

*Unbreakable Mirra on Bike

Dave Mirra's FreeS.tyle BMX! This game wanted us to have the latest directX 7 compatible GPU we at first were worried It wont run.. but it DID work and it was cool!!

Once again the first impressions were somewhat strange... we couldn't do things like in Tony Hawk.. the jumping was totally different in this.. and "can we grind using a bike?" we wondered, and the answer came soon, as we used our TH experience and tried out everything. The area was once again a small place, and it had many places to do tricks.. after a few test runs we started getting the rhythm of the game and started breaking records like longest slide, highest jump,highest score (obviously ) This was a great Tony Hawk-ish experience we had. But once again.. never found the games on stores(during that time).

That was basically the last Xtreme game we played on the PC...coz after that we got the PSone! As I mentioned before, we played 3Xtreme too, it was like a Motorstorm of extreme games, with bikes, Skate boards,roller blades all facing off in one match.. oh and did I mention the ALIENSssss?

*THPS 3 Arrives!

After that came THPS 3!! Oh yeah! Thps3 for Psone (not PS2). At first sight we were like.. "ooh look at the awesome graphics!!" And" look at this controller how much easier it is to control the game now!" But you know.. it was like returning to ground 0 as it had been a long since we played the game and were back to being total N00bs.

But, This began something both I and my Bro remember as the Tony Hawk phase of our Life. Once we started playing the game.. it was months of Tony hawk for us! We never wanted to stop playing the game. We only progressed to the other level after completing each and every thing for one level. Yeah we became absolutists We had different saves for each player. My player was always Tony Hawk (coz you know, he is in the cover so, he is the best) and my bro always took "Kareem Cambell ".

Our day consisted of doing whatever we did, coming home and then playing tony hawk, that's all. My bro became like a Pro Grinder, you give him ANY surface he would grind though that place and increase the combo like anything. And I was the Grab Master I would grab whenever there was even an inch of gap between me and ground. And also Turn while grabbing.. even when I grinded and came down, I would do a grab trick . I would often tell my bro that grinding wont get you a high combo and he would do "In your face" by breaking my combo record then I top his and then him, and vice versa, it was like an infinite loop.

The game also had great BG music, the songs always circulated in a particular order and after playing the game for oh so many hours we got the order embedded into our minds , there would be a second of silence between two songs, but during that silence we would do crossfading type music making

Our scores were now always top, as we never crossed a level until we beat the highest score for that level, and doing the best we could for a heat level (not just finishing and going to next level) The game had 2 min time limit for everything we did, and that was the best part as it gave us a feel of tension and need to complete a thing on time!

*Xam ShmXam

My brother was soo immersed with the game that.. even when he had his internal Midterm exams in college, he played the game till late nights! Lol, that's the first instance that I can remember when anyone of us gave higher priority to games over studies I told him to stop play as he had exams, but the determined look in his eyes to complete the level showed that he wouldn't so I stopped trying.

We went on playing the game and now our one trick combos were greater than what our high scores were for the initial levels We used to look at old scores and laugh at ourselves But every phase has its end, after so many great adventures(Too many to mention) in the game we completed the game... the final level was as intense as any boss battle in any game we played, we were like "We have to use our skillz to the max" and Bazillion 2 min sessions were played trying to top the highest score and complete with all golds.

It felt like world has ended and there was nothing more to do.. as we had golds in everything, everything completed 100%, a new stage was unlocked after completing, we nailed that too We juiced out everything we could from THPS 3. After completing the game.. we just revisited old stages everynow and then to have fun and pass time.

Umm....Juuuuuuuice

*THPS 3 Again?

Afterwards we realized that there were many other versions of THPS 3 and got it for the PC, my bro didn't play it, but I completed that game too, it was pretty easy now(had a gamepad for PC), the only things different in the game were that there were people other than the skater in the game (the PSone version didn't have anyone else) and a few levels had extra things, and ofcourse, It looked better! The extra level in this was a ship loaded with swim suit models Maneuvering the camera to get the best shot was what I did in this level

*THPS4 = THPS3-Insanity

Later we bought THPS4 for PSone too, I don't remember much of it, other than it being goal oriented, There are a lot of levels in my memory, maybe some of them are from this (a big tree in the middle level, airport , know which they are from? ) Maybe some THPS3 memories are mixed with this too .A Few years passed and we bought a PS2, We bought THPS4 for it anyways and, once again the first reaction was "look at the GFX!" the game was almost same as before but we had to move here and there and get missions from other people(there were no people in Psone version)... somehow, it didn't feel all that great, I don't even remember if we completed that or left it like that.But there was one good thing.. it made us play THPS 3 once again (just a level or two )

After that THPS series went BOOM shaka laka for us.. Tony hawk underground came, and we were like "whaaaaat a STORY?" We are "NOT tony hawk? "OPEN WORLD?" Just played the game a bit, it was fun... but the open world concept didn't catch our attention. It totally removed the fun of THPS.

*Open Worlds Closed Appeal

In the old games the levels were small confined places, and we had to utilize the level as much as we could, to score, there was a limited number of things, and only our brain to think and combify. Whenever we discovered a small secret place in the levels, we were like "ZOMG! More combo possibilities!" Its good to have Open world in a game but I didn't see it working in THUG. Just think of it like the XBLA games and Games on Blu Ray, the XBLA game creators have more fun because their game should be fun and also fit into a small size, there is some kind of fun in that, where as when you have a 50 GB blu ray disc,you can make the game more expansive, HD, etc etc, but there that "fun" part is lost... this might seem not too much of a big deal, but in THUG, that open world concept was something I didn't like, everytime I see something tony hawk related , I go and play some THPS3

Burnout Paradise is trying to bring the open world concept to something that shouldn't be of such type.. but if it clicks well(of which there is a good possibility), I hope tony hawk takes some pointers, I mean NFS :MW was basically open world but one could directly jump to blacklist and do things just like that, without having to go here and there just to start a mission(which is GREAT!). THPS4 was something like that, but THUG was not, Even the scores we get, didn't count unless we were in score missions. Better leave open world concept to GTA and others where it really is meaningful and cool.

Post TH Era

*Ystream?

Now let me list those other games that I played when I got "Xtreme" with everything

Razor's Frees.tyle Scooter : This game felt a bit like THPS as its trick system and button layout were quite similar, it had some interesting levels, and you could fall off buildings in it!!1! Completed that game too, it was quite interesting. Not groundbreaking or anything, but cool.

Pro Body Boarding : Seeing that we like Pro Skater so much, Father bought us this game thinking we would like this too. But sadly... this was Nothing like THPS (Surfing?!) and we shelved it permanetly after playing it once

SSX 3: Totally different, Very Cool (literally even ) first game I played with DTS support (awesome sound!) Fully deserves the 9.0 GS gave it.

Hmm....

*Latest Ventures

As for the Xtreme games that I have played recently, I only played the THP8 Demo on 360 and Skate Demo on PS3. THP8 demo was quite cool, it had the closed environment feel, although it didn't have that "heat" feeling, I went on doing tricks again and again, luckily the control layout was kept the same. That is the most played demo on my 360 and then Recently played Skate demo, it was cool and all. The graphics are great with that bloom effect on the characters taking full force. The controls were TOTALLY different, don't know if I can get accustomed to that.The camera angles were the best part, played for an hour or so (two times) it was interesting but, I am sure we can't do all those crazy stuff like in Tony hawk..

*Breaking some Bones

The game is trying to approach "Real Skating", The new way of controlling is cool and all but I like games that have that unreal feel in them, when games try to get too real, it just isn't a "video game" anymore. that's why I would prefer NFS/Ridge Racer over Forza/GT anyday Or even think of them as Second Life and WoW Almost same, but TOTALLY different, get it?

If the Level design of the next Tony Hawk is like the old days, also if (atleast) the MP modes have 2 min Time limits I MIGHT just get it, or else.. will skip it like every other tony hawk after THUG.

What about the future? God only knows maybe they will introduce special bone crunching controllers that will break your bones "LIKE REAL SKATING!!" Totally removing gamers from the scene and only "Real Skaters" will play em.

So, What do you think? Which was your Fav Xtreme Game, what do you think about the present Xtreme games? How do YOU want it to be? Comment away

And Here is a Totally Unrelated Video for you Viewing and Listening Pleasure

Player = Me.

Continuing my series of entries about my gaming past starting with the ATARI 2600, NES and PC I've been talking about the Psone Experiences from the past few entries. As for this one, I will be talking about the feelings I had playing on a console shifting directly from the NES.Also how I and my Bro Continued our Co-Op madness even here and also how we had to decide Specific Timings so that both would get a chance at playing the Psone So get ready folks, have a drink beside you if you will

Spyro- The Fire Breathing flightless dragon

First Off, I need to mention Spyro! This game is very memorable to me.Its one of the games I got in the first batch of games. To be exact it was Spyro 2 : Ripto's Rage. It had many levels ranging from a quite and nice grassy land to Icy lands where you would play Ice hockey The game's Lead was Spyro a small fire-breathing-air-gliding dragon who along with two friends a Tiger man and a Tiger lady(that's what I called them ) was on a quest to get that shorty Ripto guy. He also had a Dragon Fly friend who would point at others things and show you directions at times he was there always with spyro.

*Over is NOT, the Game..

When I started playing the game I Noticed that the whole story and everything was shown using the game's graphics unlike in other Psone games I tried out which had Movie type stories. After that I entered the game and it had many levels in it. Each level was of a different kind and it was all fun to play, I discovered one ability after the other and it was great to see that I could do so many things. After I beat the boss in a big Boss fight(after completing all the levels) I thought to my self "yay my First Psone game is over" but to my surprise there was another world to go to! Soon there came a hot air Balloon which I had to ride to go to the other stage. At this point I was thinking "Omg So many levels and boss fight later I have more to do?" and this is when I felt that the game is "really long" it was THE first game that I played which was longer than the average 5-6 hours length. And that too The whole game had 5-6 worlds I was not even near the end when I finished the first world

*Is this what they call Memorable?

The game awesome nevertheless as It had many varied places. The things you could do in it were itself great, there were also side stages which were based on going through all the rings by making Spyro fly those were a nice touch and I would usually try to go off course and see what else is there in the new land rather than trying to complete the rings first And there are some points where I was playing the game and there were guests at home, and.. whenever I think of Spyro I remember that exact point of game I was in, the guests that came to the house and the exact dialogues they were talking and it happened around 6 or so years ago I don't know why.. but maybe that's the definition of "memorable"

Let the CooP-ing being!

After such Single Player (SP) experiences I and my bro started playing Multiplayer player(MP) Co-op games,and this was something we were very good at we had great coordination. We used to watch a lot of cartoons(and still do), Looney toons were one of them, when we saw Bugs Bunny and Taz time busters, we immediately got it It was the first Co-op game we played for the PSone. As I was the smaller one,I wanted to be Player 1(just like in every other NES game we played) and my bro being the understanding guy he is.. used to be player 2 without quarreling

*Bugs and Taz? Where's Daffy?

In that Game player 1 was bugs bunny where as 2p was Taz the Tasmanian Tiger, the game basically revolved around us both going to different time zones of the planet and collecting things to fix something. It had its varied types of places too.levels in the game were, Huge areas where you would do things and then collect the necessary things and then progress to the other timezone. Oh so very simple

One problem in it was the camera angles which I never could make it go like I wanted, and also the camera followed player 1 by default and I would run here and there disturbing the camera This one of the cool things.. my brother understood how the camera works and everytime we wanted the camera to come behind us.. I and he would run in long circles together and by doing that the camera would follow us and then come to a nice behind view type position, lol. There was no single button push to get the camera at back or even a camera rotate feature And when 2P dies a box drops from above( from acme), which when opened by 1P brings back the 2P, because of this.. Always my brother used to go front as a scout and then I followed lol.. The game was a different and nice experience for us. Even though it was one of those franchise oriented games, we still had a great share of fun

Sadly we didn't complete the game as we came to a part where it was Dracula themed, and me being the small and scary one, always said "no" when my bro asked about playing the game I used to tell "There are so many other games that we can play.. lets play that ". But now I am all "growed up" so maybe the when my bro comes back someday we will turn on the psone and complete that game........

Card battling? *yay*

Oooohh Yeahhhh(macho man's way) Digimon Digital card battle. As I mentioned previously, in our frenzy of checking out everygame we got the first time with Psone we kinda got Bummed out after seeing oodles and oodles of text and non moving pictures in the game. We actually didn't touch the game till long. One time when almost all the games in our collection were completed or played till its worth. We looked at Digimon Digital Card Battle(CB). As usual, as this was the first time we were actually planning on playing the game I and my bro together started the game, once again we saw the cool intro and got hyped up we actually had it all planned, that's why started playing at an early hour, we read all the instructions it said in the beginning, kinda didn't understand all at first... soon we met our friend "betamon" and then he taught us all what we needed after playing through the first battle we felt it was kinda good.

Mind you that we never heard of Digimon before playing this game and this idea of collecting monsters and card battling in a very strategic way was exciting for us. First my Brother started the game, he took "Veemon" as his partner. He liked Fire for its great attack power and hence took it. It was like both were playing because I was also telling what to do with his card when he was playing, and he would tell me why he was not doing that and about his strategy. It was interesting as we had to use our brain and think a lot

*Awesome Attacks.

This game which at first site we thought was one of the boring-est game we had turned out to be something we liked a lot! Soon I started playing the game too and I took "hawkmon" as the nature Cards had almost everything in balance I and my brother started playing parallely and We had our saves in different memory cards Soon my bro and I would be seen playing ONLY that game. It had great elements like, us choosing a very less powerful attack with 'X" Button which had things like reversing the enemies "O" attack(which is very powerful) so that gave chance for a situation where our health is less that your opponents "O" attack and you KNOW he is going to use it to kill you and you can use you X attack(if it has "O" Reversal) and take it to your adavantage

It also had things like using support cards and making your attack power for all attack same as you health, and also some "X" attacks had "eat hp" for some Digimon where you would eat all the hp you took out from your opponent with X attack and hence giving a chance for an attack where you could make your attack power as much as your health and then double it! The game also had the Digivolve thing which was another great part of the game!

Man that game was awesome, everything depended upon YOUR capabilities.. because even with the worst of cards one can win if he has nice strategies and support cards. Because of this factor we went on playing the game.

*Vacation Time!

I and my Bro had summer vacation at same time as we studied in the same school and in the vacation when we were playing Digimon. We set up small rugs on the floor near the TV and would play sitting in front of the TV till late nights and then sleep whenvever we wanted to sometimes I would sleep and see my brother playing and it was like some bed time story for me In the same vacation time we went to Saudi Arabia for the first time and there we took our Psone with us.

*Nothing to do but game.

This was when it got even more extreme Since I and my Bro had nothing else to do than play in there(no kids no nothing) I and my brother made a tight schedule, in a day 4 hours I play and 4 hours he plays, and alternate like that How were we playing the game even there you ask? The thing is that.. we used to save a LOT! And rather than saving in new blocks we used to overwrite the file and once when we were around 30 hours into the game BOTH the save files were gone.. we had to restart the game all over but my brother told "since we know the game now, we can gather better cards and play without loosing" and this was the start of our Continuous winning streak We started playing the game again and NEVER..i mean NEVER lost the game we had every strategy we could think of(all made by us, as we never used to come online for help or anything)

So we came to Saudi now and the heat was on! I and my brother both wanted to see how the game progressed and reached the end. But the thing was that.. the game Never used to end!! There was one stage coming after the other and we went on playing Soon we saw places like Card fusion shops and everything.. since we didn't see Digimon show till then it was all guess work for us... but the best thing was that.. in Saudi TV for the first time ever.. we saw "Digimon TV SHOW!" that Arabic title song is still embedded into my mind and luckily it was near the fusion saga, so we found out which to fuse and got great cards! Soon we were almost 80 Hours into the game, we went on playing for days and never realized we spent so much time with that This time after playing for every 30 hours we made a new save file and deleted the old one., so that there would be no problem in the game like before.

*Is there a End to this Game?

We made our partner cards so ultimate that we could win matches only using one card We armour digivolved them, added some parts to them and what not. It was just awesome! We collected 95% of the 200 or so cards and soon we reached the FINAL level! At this point we were more than 100 hours into the game! and this was just the main story! This was because we played EVERY battle Defeated EVERYone and Collected all the cards from one place and only then progressed because of this we rarely had problems in the other levels. We made so many special decks of our own giving them names and everything

In the final Level there was a continuous 4 battles without saving or anything when we tried to save. It would say something like "your system is hacked" or something like that it was creepy indeed. As the whole game was about data,digital and everything. The final boss "A"(Apokarimon) he was one TOUGH guy! All his cards were special option cards called "sevens" cards, which were overly powerful shifting the balance completely. And the guy had attack powers of horrible magnitude greater than many Ice Digimon had (Ice have the biggest HP/Defence)

After loosing sometimes (and resetting ) I finally Beat it!!! Yahoo! Both beat him actually(alas, Both I and my bro had ONE loss during these battles ). Still there is a dispute on who did it first (as we were playing in one order, it could be totally opposite if we played in another order ) and there were the credits and everything shown.. I was so much happy that the game is over.. but oh noes! There was more.. digimon like Dark Gurumon and Dark xxxxmons started coming.. and it was like another whole season began we continued to play it and finally reached the end. There was NOTHING left in the game to do

Everything was complete, all parts were got, all people were beat, everything unlocked the ONLY thing was that we didn't have 3 cards out of all the things.. these were VERY hard to get.. its like PURE luck if you get it.. as the cards that people give are very random, and also sometime fusing two option cards you get another option card.. we spent 5 or so hours trying to fuse almost everything and get that card we NEVER got that.. so other than those 3 cards(all option cards) every ounce of juice from the game was squeezed out by us and best of all, this was the FIRST and ONLY game till now that we played for so long, it was around 300 hours(Both I and my Bro combined). I was trying to recollect exactly how much and turned on my Psone the other day sadly my Save files are all gone atleast my brother's save file was safe I and my bro played at separate times but played for the equal length you can see his stats in the pics below.. I had more cards with me though

*There's More?

The SP part of the game was done.. so now what remained? There was a MP part to it too! In it two players could load their decks and then exchange cards or fight against each other.. this was the real fun part I and my bro rarely competed against each other, but when we did.. we used to get so seriously into it from this stats pic below it will be clear who was better

But we played only a few matches against each other.. coz you know.. we don't want to see who is better or anything like that.. that would bring up differences in us.. but if there was something like tag Team match against someone.. then I am sure. I and my bro can pwn others real good!

*Bye Bye Digimon...

So.. that was the end of the Digimon CB Saga/Arc in our life. We played it so much that EVERYONE knows that game even now when my mom sees me playing any game she asks about that "card game" that we used to play a lot and why we don't play it now.... I really hope that there will sometime soon be a card game as interesting as this released in the future.

Until Next time.

And I think that's all for this entry. I was thinking of mentioning Tomba!2 in this.. as it was during the same vacation in Saudi that we played it. But. GS Character limit says "leave it for later" So.. until then See you guys around

Heres a Video to get you entertained

First and Foremost Watch this...



More details on it soon.

Here I am with another one of those Intermission in my long running blogs about my past.. I felt this was necessary as a LOT has happened and also many of my friends were asking me WHAT has happened and where I was for so many days... so you all can find out everything here

The first Big thing that Happened was that I bought a Xbox 360 on March 22nd and That too thanx to my Good Friend Gagan I got a Superb offer of $300 on it. I went on my bike top pickit up from the courier office and got it back.. unpacked and did everything with it. I enjoyed it a lot. and the Next day itself I got it LIVe and completed Gears of war in 6 hours in online Co-op with gagan It was AMAZING fun.. we played like we were some elite S.W.A.T team or something talking on the mic and everything.. it was my first ever online Co-Op experience and it was Funnnnnnnnnnnnn.

After that I met a lot of others online and talked to them too, like Peldon, Interstate,played gears with Gagan and Kbshaffer and made many new friends too.

My Home theater got a New member** it took me a lot of time to think where to place it and do the wiring.. it was a tiring job but worth it nevertheless. I even did a H/W reivew of it for my brother as for every console we owned till date .. we would close our eyes and open it together to see the console at a time in a way to say its both our console.As they are in Hindi I didnt Upload them here You can Find them HERE

I made a HUGE blog about it in 360 you can Check it out.

As for other things.. I had my 1st year end of semester exams for the WHOLE may.. and then went to Saudi Arabia and Dubai for Vacation. stayed there for More than a month.. and during these two months I was unable to constantly come online at GS. hence no contact with you guys

But Man! the trip the was awesome! After going there no one will think that its a Desert land.. it has more greenary than india But they are a very conservative bunch.. lot of strict rules.. but still good. You see more fillipino people there than Arabs The Cars there are SUPER fast min. Speed is like 100KMPH there! where as no one can go above 70 here in indian roads Also.. cars are too cheap.. you get honda Citys for half the Price! Petrol is 20 TIMES! cheaper and watewr costs more than petrol

On The First day itself My father Bought me a new cell which was a Nokia 6300, I selected it after comparing eveything.. and its price to Features ratio is just amazing! got it for $50 less than in India And the BEST part was that.. after going there.. I got a PS3! I got it on June 14th as an Early B'day Gift I searched for that thing in EVERy shop I went and after searching and searching one fine day I found a hidden lane of Games (like some secret area in a game it was ) and I searched it and got a PS3 which was Ntsc J version( no matter as Ps3 is region free and I will keep my PS2 just as I did for the Psone) and I got it... for an amazing $400 less than what I get here that was a steal! I even got Resistance free with it

The first ever TV I ran it on was a 4" B/W tv for testing later played it on a 18" CRT TV with Mono sound I wanted very much to come home and play it in my home theater. I completed Resistance there and had a Lot of fun playing with the bullseye, thats one of the best guns in a Game IMO.. there are so many unique things you can do with that thing.

During the remaining days in there.. I searched for the games I wanted and Got all of em! I wanted MotorStorm and got it.. also on my B'day (july 4th) i got Vegas! Which is awesome btw. and For NGS.. I searched a LOT.. one day I did around 3-4 KMs walking and asking everyshop for that game but didnt find it... but on 7/7/7 I found it which was a very lucky day for me indeed

With all these four games I was very much content and wont buy more till holiday season or maybe LAIR if its great.

Also.. there I searched very much for a Wifi Router so that I can lay my DS and PS3 online at home and also use it for guests' laptops The average price was 75$ for those.. but I searched and searched for weeks and found it for 50$! another great example to show that searching does give you good results!

Similarly I searched for a Bluetooth headset and after weeks of searching I got it for HALF the pricfe in a Carrefour.(less than $20)

On the last 3 Days we went to Dubai and toured the place.. I have to say, its a marvel of mans creations. That place has all seasons happening in it all year round at the same time! they have man Made islands and what not.. also the WORLDS BIGGEST MALL! We went to that place and it was awesome.. the sheer amount of games there amazed me.. I never saw so many game related shops at one place.

I took a lot of PIcs to show all you guys.. and also it was the first time that i played Guitar hero there! (360 version) I got 88% in my very first attempt The Games priced OK there.. but Things like TVs were So cheap.. they are HALF the rate what we find in india. I enjoyed a lot watching the TV shops and looking at their HD glory

Also! There was NO CUSTOMS charged at the airport I was in so much tension thinking we would have to pay 10% customs or something.. but luckily it didnt get customs! yay

Now I was home.. missed a lot of college all friends were calling. I was very much hapy to see that 30 Friends had sent me Wishes on my B'day and was very touched After coming I had Huge body pains and head ache as in the past Three days I slept only for 5 hours! It was a very tiring journey..

And after coming home I setup the home theater with a Lot of ethical thinking of where to put those consoles Because of the the way my Arrangement was made and how the Holes are made.. it was only possible for me to keep it in a way such that the PSone and 360 (white consoles) were kept at the Bottom, and Ps3 and Ps2(black consoles) at the top..I dont know why.. I think I was thinking too much

I was telling my self if I keep ps3 in bottom people will call me 360 fan, if i keep ps3 on top the other way around, and if i keep black seperate from white they would think I am a person who sees different colours differently.. I thought of keeping black and white combo to have a multicoloured thing but keeping PS3 and 360 together would blow things up and Psone and PS3 didnt look that great. In The End I thought that.. well, Its ONLY CONSOLE PLACING!! And I kept in most opposite way imaginable only so that I can say I am not a bad person its only becasue of the technicalities of the situation that I had to place them.. not considering the ethics I should be sounding like a crazy man right now.. but I feel that even my consoles will fight among themselves if i dont play them much

I Even Got Internet Working on the Ps3 and Installed Linux in it too Did almost everything imaginable with it, just like the 360(hearing Internet Radio on it using Media Center, Using Media center, using MSN Messenger BEFORE the Update, again, Via Media Center, Sharing media and what not )



So here is the Final Pic of the NEW IMPROVED home theater.. and I Will make another video about it. when the TRINITY is complete

Hope This fills all of you in on what was happening these days.. I could say a lot more.. but that would be Toooo long

P.S I found this Funny Things At Dubai.. apparently People are Copying from game Consoles. So can see a Media Center Device of Same Shape as PS3 which won an award for "Excellence in Design" (what a ripoff) and Another Portable HDD which looks like the 360. Check em out.

More Pics in my Albums (1 and 2)

Last time I gave a small preview of the years of gaming with me and the PSone. It was the about the first day when I and bro finally got the long cherished dream of having a Psone Fulfilled. After the initial Burst..we played Psone Every weekend. And EVERY day of holidays.. it was not normal playing.. we would play it like theres no tomorrow Hereon follow the recaps of great moments I had with its games, that will forever and always be remembered... not in my brain..but in my heart.

*With Great Consoles, comes great changes.

After the first day..things went on smoothly.. we soon got the cargo we were waiting for, it had an extra controller and few more games.. we went through those too. But they were not as much as we got in the first day After that we had to decide how and when we played the thing...I was kinda like the guy who always gave Home work and other studies first priority.. I would always finish my homework first and then think of playing on it. Usually.. I had Cartoons to watch after homework.. So it was mostly Weekends for me.. and BOY! Did I wait for weekend so eagerly.. Every Monday I would think of when Saturday will arrive. I would finish home work with great determination so that I never have any work on Saturdays and Sundays and because of this.. I had hours of gaming time at hand All my friends always asked me, how I play a lot and still get good marks I can say that in a way games IMPROVED my studies My brother was more of a dormant gamer at this time. As he had higher studies(more serious work) but he NEVER gave up a chance to play a co-op game. We were like the unbeatable duo, every game we beat with such great teamwork, no matter how good the AI.. with our nice logical thinking and teamwork we always tricked it and beat it.

As for the Single Player Gaming experience.. It was like a whole new thing for me.. Most of the games I played were NES and SNES till now.. most of which were all one sitting completion type or infinite time pass gaming type. We looked very strangely at the memory cards as it was a totally new concept,never heard of saving games into another thing and then loading in the beginning we thought it was only for saving Hi Scores or something.. Some of the first games we went on playing for hours together thinking that the next stage would be last, but we were so wrong The game used to go on and on and we had to save. This was very new to us and also the controller with so many buttons and VIBRATION. It was pretty cool.. the only device we knew which had vibrations were pagers..(cell phones were not "all that" back then).The Start was all oohs and and aahs and then we soon started getting into the GAMES instead of the GamING Now... which game should I talk about... oh.. maybe...

TOMBA!

*Not an RPG, not a Sidescroller, Not an adventure... but a Mixture of all.

Yeah. This game is like something that will never get off me. This was THE first game that made me sit and play through it completely, on the PSone. To begin with,it was a 2D sidescroller but categorising it under one genre will do no justice. It was like a combination of many genres and yet it was coherent.. it didn't strangle itself in a mess of gameplay features.

The Intro
(not the same as the one in previous entry)

I started playing it. The intro was great and it left me moving the controller like a banana in a chimpanzee's hand.The game's first stage was at the entrance of village and it looked quite nice. I talked to some guy who told me I had rad pink hair Soon, I started catching and throwing pigs and then talking to monkey that wears pants.That monkey is our friend Charles.. who speaks the animal language like tomba does, yes.. there is some secret jibber jabber language that all animals and mowgli like tomba can communicate with Its a Fantasy world one can say, with dwarfs, mouse people and what not. A variety of people can be seen throughout the game. Charles, helps us many times but only when we do him favours. he teaches us how to swim, gives an umbrella and what not.

The Story of the game is that your world has been invaded by "Evil pigs" and they are taking every Gold they can find in the lands for some kind of magic related secret plan, and one fine day they steal the armlet/bracelet that your grandfather gives to you. So you embark on a journey to get back the bracelet and in a way you even save the world The Evil Pigs have cursed all land and transformed them into something that doesnt allow the inhabitants to live peacefully. So what I do is capture the evil pig that has Cursed the land, and pack him in a PIG BAG, thats right, a bag to conviniently carry those evil pigs around No Princess/Girlfriends to save here Now that you know the story.. hear it from the one I got to know!

If you can understand in first view, then..

The game was mission driven but it was VERY non linear,you could do anything you wanted and roam anywhere you wanted. Associated with Missions were AP points, which were given when you complete the certain mission, you might not understand why its used... but as you progress in the tomba series you will understand The missions were Puzzles which required Platforming. It also had RPG elements. With character development and skill/weapon upgrades. For example, at first I would just run normally but after wards. I learn how to "dash" like an animal (Charles teaches me that too) after learning that, there was no normal walking. Always dashing.. a finger on square, always.

Level Design Was Superb in this game. there were many level types ranging from SideScrolling type to Top Down View type. every place had its own kind of inhabitants.There was this place called the Mushroom Forest where you would see large flowers in the background. The whole place had different kinds of mushrooms layed out. and when you ate a crying mushroom all flowers would start crying and you too, in every short interval would start running and crying Similarly with the laughing fruit where tomba laughs uncontrollably in ever interval with the flowers behind giving a chorus (got a bit frightening at times ). Only way to escape was to eat a normal mushroom.

The music in each level was very good, it was so good that many of them are still stuck in my head(Heard em more than 5 years back), and I even put up some as my ringtones just hearing a small bit of the music reminds me of the things I did in the game. Its like, everything from the game flashes in my head when I hear VG music. The game itself is rare to find in stores.. and there is a least bit of chance you will ever find its OST though But its best hearing VG music as and when you play it I always say

There were weapons like grappling hooks too. And the best thing about it was that it didn't have specific locations to attach to like in most games today. It grappled any surface it could penetrate through giving great opportunities for custom made, unintended shortcuts

The missions in the game were all varied, having us do many different things. The game had a LOT of missions. Not all were needed to be completed in order to complete the game.. but all challenges were fun to accomplish. There was no repetition in the type of missions and it was another big plus point. There are a few secret missions in the game too. I completed the game and roamed the whole place almost thrice looking for

new missions but never found them (the undiscovered missions were faded in black in game menu).All the missions listed in FAQs I had already done.. and there was no mention of these.

*The Great Research, A travel back in Time.

And this was the FIRST time that I would go to any Forum. Back then GS had forums.. but it was only accessible by PAID members, also..I couldn't understand anything in the forums It was all greek and latin to me. So I searched for another place and found this place called "GameTalk.com" This was the first ever Forum that I posted in. It was supposed to be the third most active forum (after IGN and Gamespy) in those days. It had a pretty good layout too. Simple and plain kinda like GS of today's.Too bad its very much dead now a days

I first started helping others(dated Back to March '02 ) in getting things done and all that. And later started asking my

doubts.. there I found this guy who was like a HUGE HUGE tomba fan(Protector Wind). He played the game so much that at any point he could recollect a mission and tell how to solve it. And when I asked him about the secret missions even he didn't know about them. So, one day.. like my usual self I started doing different things with the things I had. I put in the PSone Disc into my computer's Drive and then thought to see whats there inside..there were only files and I couldn't understand what they were. I started roaming the internets and soon found this place called NGEmu.com which had these "Players" that play FMVs from PSone discs! So, I downloaded that thing and tried the tomba disc.

This thing started days of research.

This was one of the biggest things that happened with me and tomba. The levels in the game always transformed after the curse from that place is removed. And among all the known ones there was a video of some strange unknown place being de-cursed. Even now as I type, and it has been 4 years since I saw , I remember each frame of that video. I immediately went to the forums and asked about the thing(Feb '03 ). And that tomba fan had no idea about it. He soon posted about it in his website and asked all the people there.(it was great to know that he even had a website for the game, back then it was) There was no one who ever saw that.. So I told him how to see it, about the software and all, and we soon started something like a huge conspiracy theory research..

After months of asking here and there and also contacting people who knew the non existent whoopee camp. The results were unfruitful. No one knew what that video was and no one ever saw it while playing the game.. it was like one of those mysteries that were never answered. After some month or so of research I and that friend thought to keep it aside and played tomba again just for fun and searched the maps after completion,but to no avial.

*The ones Who DoneDidIt then.

If there is one thing that I would like to see in the gaming world then that would be to gather the whole Whoopee camp people and then get them to make another tomba or maybe a "spiritual successor" to the game. All those people who worked on the game were true geniuses. To give you an Idea. The Main Director of the Game(Tokuro Fujiwara/Professor F) was the one who was the producer of the original Resident Evil Game and also worked the legendary Street Fighter 2, he even was the chief producer of Super Ghosts and Goblins,Megaman X and many others. As for the People who did the Art part of the game, the members of the team did the Character modeling and animations for games like Okami, Genji(ps3), Metal Slugs 1 and 2!, Devil may cry 3, Final Fantasy XII,Ace Combat 4, to name a few.

Atleast there should be a re-release of the game on PSN so that people can play it on their PS3s or PSPs.

They were like the Clover studio of the present day, They(whoopee Camp) made two games and then went separate ways and did different works, to become great people,They were also kinda opposite to them because, Clover consisted of already great people getting together and making games. Luckily Clover Studio is going to be reborn as Seeds, but there will be no more of Whoopee camp As a tribute to the great developers and people who worked for the game. Here is the end credits of the game.

....

Well, I've planned on writing much more but it might be too much to handle for a few See you all in the next blog More Psone Goodness awaits.

Welcome to Another Entry of my journal Last time I told you all about how I and my Bro got a PSone after years of waiting. Along with the Console we got a loads of games to play.. and play we did! The whole day we spent switching CDs and trying out all the games we got.. it was what you call.. a FRENZIED gaming session. In this Entry I will tell few of the most memorable moments we had that day.

* Same Name,Different Numbers

After opening the PSone's  Box we read the whole Box turning it in all kinds of directions thinkable We Didn't remove the white soft material within which the console was rapped.. we used it as a cushion to put under the PSone and even NOW we have it under the PSone, not torn even a single bit.We waited for Dad to show us all the things he brought and oohed and aahed at all the things different things. Dad remembered that we told him that we liked 3Xtreme a Lot.. so he bought a game called  2 Xtreme.. He told us this when he bought the game.. and we thought that it was a prequel to the game we already had (3Xtreme).. so we told OK and he brought it Along with that there were many other games(as mentioned previously).

Soon all the unpacking and stuff was over.. Pops told us to Enjoy the PSone and we Jumped and started connecting the thing.. it was quite easy for us to connect, and then we turned it on.. we saw that white screen and PSone Logo come up, It was the first time we heard the sound (previous time we played PSone, it was already turned on) Soon we put the Games in and started the playing!

Tomba!

The First game that always comes into my mind when I think of the day that I played the PSone is TOMBA!, I don't know how many times I have mentioned it.. but that game was a true GEM! It was very unique and it left its mark on my brain..I always try to compare other games with this and see how good they are. Its not REALISM in games that I desire.. its FUNNISM. This game was filled with fun and also had great thought provoking puzzles. So how did the first experience go ??

Well, We put in the CD and I started playing.. at first we saw the Whoopee Camp Logo and it was nice with the jingle and giggle The Game menu didn't tell much about the game and then the game started loading, there were pigs dancing in the loading screen so I figured out it had something to do with pigs.. and then soon the intro started.. and the intro was very nice It was one of the first 3D cutscenes we saw for games, as up until then we played only 2D snes games where the best cutscenes were like Anime Sequences. After that we were thrown at the village that is show at the end of the intro..I had no idea what to do and moved my character here and there. Tried jumping and all that.. the first time I saw an enemy, instinctively, I jumped on the enemy trying to take it down and it did work! What tomba did was.. bite the pig and catch it from the top I was so surpised and then later on jumping he threw it with a spin jump.. that was quite funny and exciting.. and I started doing it again and again for more pigs and then later on realized that we could shift from fore ground to BG! Which was also cool! Giving a new dimension to a sidescroller game.. I played around a bit more and then returned to the CD switching.. but in the end came back to this game and played a LOT. It was such a Varied Game it had many different things. This was the only game that I felt that Is worth reviewing.. coz every other game there are many reviews and almost everyone knows of them.. There is another reason, if I write a review I tend to mention even the minute details and since I usually don't have time I don't write reviews that much..but  I felt this was worth spending some time sitting and reviewing.. so check out the review if you like

Spyro!

Now for the other games.. along with that we also saw other games.. one of them was Spyro 2. The game was the first 3D platformer that I played and playing in 3D was really different and cool We have so much freedom in them.. This began a journey into the 3D platformer world for me which almost never ended.. From a simple D-pad controls Its evolved to Dual Analogue Controls with body movements and Camera Movements at the same time. I liked this game too.. and more on this game later

*Different Numbers, Different Games.

Next was 2Xtreme.. which turned out to be NFL Xtreme 2... That's shows how easy it is to get tricked by a smart game naming system   Its like buying rainbow six thinking it was new Splinter Cell game just coz they have "Tom Clancy" in their names. It was the first time ever I played an American Football Game..we had no friggin idea what it was we were kids, and we turned on the game and there was a pic of a girl with pom poms and miniskirt  in the in menu screen we just pressed x x x x and then soon the game started..we got the ball ran for some time and then some guy threw us down.. that's what we understood..and after that we were shown a screen with some dots and lines.. we had NO single idea what it was ... just pressed X and then continued... and then after sometime figured out it was some player movement thing.. and we started selecting by thinking.. but then we thought "We are playing against computer.. and it will know which move we are taking.. so whats the point"

*Computer = Smart,Humans = SmartER

That's what I think even now.. If you are selecting some move.. its obvious that the game knows it.. so the computer will automatically come to that place where your player will go.. I've felt like this so many times even in FPS games with hard difficulty., I think that the AI calculates the time and position of reaching(for our bullet) as soon as we click the mouse and they can easily dodge it.. so its almost impossible to kill them.. unless you shoot another bullet before they can react to the new bullet.. that's what I do in UT Shoot first bullet somewhere and the  computer dodges it, I know which direction it will dodge so shoot another bullet even before it jumps and it dies in air ... some more analyzing like this helped me a lot in competitions and hence I never play in least difficulty as no matter what game it is .. it's always a cake walk

As for the NFL game.. it turned out to be one of the games that we NEVER played again

We continued playing more and more games throughout the day. I and My bro were HUGE WWF fans back in the days.. we've followed WWF(E) since '92 and DID try those things at home and even on huge sand dunes It was fun having a brother as you can fight as much as you want, as in real FIGHT(piledriving, Clotheslineing,DDTing, SleeperHolding ....) and still not worry about the future coz we are stuck together forever....  and NOW ! we had a realistic game to fight in! We were so stunned with the graphics after watching the SmackDown! Game.. it was like nothing we saw before.. all had resemblance to the real self..unlike the blobby sprites in the NES games We played the game for sometime.. and then didn't play much as we didn't have the second controller yet

*Monkeying Around 

Ape Escape was another game that we got with the PSone.. and The game was an instant hit for us It was the only game that we saw that utilized the dual analogue sticks in a unique way.,.movement with one stick and then attack with another stick.. the games intro itself was very nice..with all monkeys going crazy The game has great sense of humour.. there were so many "cheeky monkeys" in it.. and the things they did was Sooo hilarious! The best thing was that. There were HUNDREDs of monkeys but NO Repetition in the personalities of the monkeys! All were unique! The way the game sent us to the stage itself was very nice.. with this nice BG music and warp zone type screen. The sounds were very arcadey.. and added to the fun. We liked the way that we had to row Boats in it.. one analogue stick for one paddle and then rowing them EXACTLY like we do in real life.. very immersive! We played for quite some time and then changed to the next..

*Card battling?! Text?! *yawn* 

This Changing and Playing Continued for ours together and soon it was bed time.. but we had this one last game to see. And it was Digimon Digital Card Battle.. We put it in and then we started the game... The starting intro was the Coolest! Intro!ever!.. We had no Idea what was happening but it had super cool things like transformations , stuffs happening and this cool Theme coming in the BG. We were thinking it was some cool game and started playing it... there was this training thing at first.. and I and my bro have this thing of playing the training first no matter what

The game was saying something about nature, earth, fire and all that. It was all text based and soon, after reading it for a while we got sleepy.. and tried to skip it and see the gameplay... we went on pressing "X" but one after the other text kept on coming! We went crazy with all the text.. and thought it was some waste game not worth playing.. so we just closed the thing and took rest for the day... Little did we know.... That this would turn out to be the LONGEST GAME we both ever played.. and the first game that we fought over for,like anything More on this later all I can say is that.. we played it so much.. that even now(more than 4 years later ).. whenever our parents think of us playing games.. ask about it

This was just the Tip of the iceberg that was filled with gaming joy with me and PSone. What you saw here was the first day and initial Impressions of the games.. I've spent hours and Hours playing all these games, and my Detailed desc. of these games will soon follow  but  that's it for now Next one will be about the different games some EXTREME...

Here is a Video which all of you will Enjoy

First of all, I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hope everyone gets a nice share of True next gen gaming that begins this year

In the Previous Entry, Most of the games I mentioned were for the PS2, here you can get to see some of the multiplatform games that I played. I’ve bought and played around 30-50 games this year and remembering all of them Is next to impossible for me I Will try my best So lets get Started.

Q3 : Waking up the Sleeper Hits.

*Psychotic Exorcism.

Psychonaughts, another platformer worth playing, the game reminded me VERY much of KYA dark lineage, It(KYA) was almost the same, with a huge village instead of a summer camp, and we went to one part of the forest instead of brains. While PsyN one had different Psychic powers, KYA had the Power of EXORCISM! We could Exorcise Wolves back into their human form! KYA was very nice with many things to do in the main village even, The physics and graphics in it were also amazing. Both these games were amazing! but Psychonaughts had a lot of humour in it which is ofcourse a good thing

*"Come out and PLAY warriors..."

Next, I and My bro had some Co-op Fun we played "The Warriors", This game, IS the best Movie based game! It can stand alone as a game. Not only does it have the story of the whole movie(which itself was great) but it had Many extra hours of things which happened Before the Movie! and the co-op part of the game was great as ever with an intelligent split screen feature. The game was by Rockstar ,so, it has "Great Varied gameplay" written all over it by default The game also had a lot of free roam features, which were rather useless but still fun And the best part was.....WE FINALLY GOT TO BEAT UP THAT STUPID GUY! yeah that guy who shouts "The warriors did it"&”Come out and play Warriors”, didnt get any beating in movies end, but in the game credits! we get to beat him up to our hearts content! An awesome ending I must add

I also played Indigo Prophecy this year, it was a game that I was looking forward to very much, and when I finally got hands on it, I played it till 3 Am and finished it the next day It was rather short, but still a very interesting experience, it was like watching a 8 hour movie, where we get to decide things and at points, things really behave differently according to what we do!A Unique Experience, Best played on consoles.

Later I got Killer7, something that I was waiting to get my hands on since very long, The game is , simply put, WIERD! No matter how good you are at english, if you dont have subtitles on, you can Never understand anything in the game except, "the Master. This is dangerous. This is VERY dangerous" (people who played the game will get it ) The gameplay of the game is also quite different with this "Railed" routes, Its kinda fun to have a different experience everynow and then.

Then I got some Cool Old-skool games, PaRappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy! both unique and awesome in their own way, The Songs are some of the best I have heard in recent past, anyone with a interest in Rhythm games should get it "Chop! Kick!"

I shelved Ratchet Deadlocked for Quite sometime and then finally played it was somewhat of a breeze to play, I completed the game 100% Within no time,(and yeah, I NEVER use game guides for secrets and all that) It was definitely not as great as the others, but graphically it was stunning, and it had all its trademark humor sequences in it

After a LOT of pain and searching I was finally able to get my hands on KATAMARY Damacy, I had the OST of it before I could get the game The songs in it are amazing, and the game itself Is crazy! i've never met a king wearing Pink Stalking before

Q4:Adventuring in the PCs

On the PC, I got reintroduced to my fav Genre(for PC games) thanx to the Classic Adventure Games union, I Played a LOT of adventure games in the past and now again, I started playing, I enjoyed Sam and MaX a Lot, Have great memories of it implanted in my brain presently am playing the First episode of the next series I also Played Monkey Island 1 and 2 This year, I've the played the other two many years ago, but couldn't get my hands on these until recently.I started playing MI 2 at the commencement of my vacations and Finished it at its LAST DAY I enjoyed the game a lot.classic Threepwood Action at its Best! .... "Look! Theres a 3 headed monkey behind you!"

Another game I would like to mention is NEVERHOOD, As previously mentioned in another entry, we had great fun playing this game,It was So hard, but we managed to use our analyzing power and solve each and every puzzle in it, without even using a guide.The jokes in it were very nice(Even uploaded a Video) , But the puzzles were the main thing of the game, as they were all very analytical and required us to use Pen and paper I most of em

In July I Finally got a HUGE upgrade for my PC(after 3 years)(Click Spoiler for Full Details)

Then on August 9th my Near and Dear Bro left me He went to US for his Higher Studies,Whole year I remembered him in every Festival, as it was the first Time in my life that i didnt have my caring bro beside me

But the best part is.... I can get games and consoles direct from the Center of Western gaming world!! U.S.A! Wohoo! and things are so cheap there (including the PS3 ) He always takes pics of gaming shops and Ps3 and sends em to me

I just loved the concept of Guitar hero, but the thing isn’t available anywhere in my state, So what I did was get this game called FRETS on FIRE (around 3-4 months ago) and I started playing it with my wireless Keyboard Its almost the same, and the Best part is its FREE! Yeah FREE! You also get new songs for it every now and then. And one can also download the whole GH 1 and 2 songs set for it

Friends and Internet.

After that,on OCT 14th I got Brain age for the DS our whole family was already addicted to Sudoku and I like brain related activities , The game turned out to be simply amazing! I play it DAILY! Along with that I got Zelda:A link to the Past(something I was waiting for since very long ) and Also Wario land 4. Both excellent portable games! The DS on lowest brightness gives me 12-15 hours of gameplay, and its very bright in the lowest brightness itself.I played Zelda for 4 hours straight on my DS once I also got an awesome DS Cover which I use to hang the DS on my Belt whenever I go out TRENDY

This year I was introduced to Videogamesblogger.com thanx to Astro, The site is just amazing, its a VG news site, and it covers almost every gaming news on the planet,GS only posts the News which it is 100% sure of, and for which it has First hand info, but this website being independent gets news from almost every gaming portal(one can never see GS referring to a IGN new or vice versa) The Website gets almost 10k Hits a day, and this Xmas they had half a million Hits!, It looks simple, but its really great, I even participated in a Competition there, and View a SIGNED(by Tetsuya Mizuguchi himself) copy of Lumines for the PSP!(more details in Link) my Name was even featured in the Video interview

*Two of a Kind.

Also this year, I met My friend Gagan his Profile was almost empty with one blog about him saying that he would get both PS3 and 360 , the blog even had a reply from Justin Calvert(GS staff). I Found him and many other Indian GS members using my Secret power(), I contacted him, made him Join IGG, and then soon, he Started blogging and now has almsot everyone I know visiting his blog He Just Wrote his 100th Blog recently An Ardent 360 player , No doubt about that , I was just talking to him one day and mentioned how I had to change two discs of GoW and Still had problems in the game(it didnt load after I crossed the Bridge on the TITAN) he simply said..."I'll Give you my Copy" I was thinking he was joking or something but turned out he really meant it :O he said he had the same problem but managed to get a good one as he knew a shop owner and he could exchange the game many times and got a good one , Within a Week I got the Game and I was Mad Crazy to find a PoP:WW Disc also in it! The game used to get stuck after I beat the princess, I just told him that he sent me that game too Great guy!

ON OCT 27th he Visited HYD(city where I live), and Called me just when I reached home from college, saying that we could meet in the mall, I without any second thoughts just started off to the mall, which took me an hour to reach due to the hectic Traffic.We had a great time talking, Finally I got to meet a guy like me I touched a PSP for the First time! played SVR 06 in it, saw a bunch of High Def Videos,had Iced Tea at Pizza Hut. I was planning on having fun in the arcade with him, but it seems He had some work, so he had to leave, it was a short meet, but a great one indeed And that day when I returned home I got my Copy of Lumines Via Courier I was so happy that day I didnt even have a PSP I and Gagan thought of meeting again so that we could play some DS MP also play My Lumines on his PSP.. but tight schedules didnt allow it

One fine day, I was decided to Buy Component Cables for my PS2 as I knew that I wasn't going next gen soon, and I had to use my HDTV in someway or the other(normal input is waste for the HDTV).I did Intensive Testing later, Pics and Details can be found here

*Mashing to the Beat!

Near the End of the Year I got Rhythm Tengoku, a game that GS made me fall in love with(Thanks to Jeff and OTS) I watched its video on OTS almost daily till I got the game and after getting it, even till today, I play it daily atleast once, the game is So unique, and I love Beat-ie music AND J-POP! Its a great combination of the two, I'v got medals in many remixes and stages in it I've shown it to many kids and they all like it the Ghost stage is the one everyone liked... Every music in it makes you swing your head in the rhythm

*2007 : Games that'll be played.

As for Other Games, I have LOADs of them on Reserve, I had this planned when I bought my PS2 itself, that I would leave some games for the big gap when I will be stuck in old gen The Games that I have in reserve are.

These two I will be playing FOREVER and ALWAYS

Until next time...

I think that brings this to the conclusion I still feel I missed something '06 was great for me!

ThanQ all for reading Hope I gave a nice insight on the games that mentioned,Try out one of em, I am sure you will have a stupendous time playing them

Once again I wish You All a Happy New year Also a big ThanX to all my GS friends who made me have nice online year and Hope you like the changes in my Profile The old banner and icon were more than a year old

P.S: Dont Forget to See the PART I

Here's Something I've Been Playing