If you know me even slightly well, you know that I'm in love with cars. I haven't been up to snuff since I entered university, but my love for cars has definitely not left me.

It stands to reason then, that I would buy Forza 3. I dumped hooooooours into Forza 2 and I just about did a back flip when I got my copy of 3 in the mail.

I've been racing, yes, and I'm pretty darn good too (usually in the top 1% -- not bad for using fulling auto ) but I've been spending a lot of time painting my cars and taking pictures of them which is more than a little addictive. I've been trying to upload videos to forzamotorsport.net but like a lot of people, it just hasn't been working.

In any case I thought I'd share with you my baby of the moment. It's a Lotus Evora, and man is it a pretty car. In general I'm a fan of Lotus as they take small engines and get amazing performance out of them, and in my opinion, make some of the best handling cars on the planet. After I realized I was definitely going to drive this car for a long time, I thought I'd spruce it up. After I found some cool vinyls of a chick from Evangelion, I painted up the rest of the car around her. The result is pretty cool, and if I really wanted it to be awesome I could spend more time on the tear effects, but I'm too lazy.

Enough with the talking, here she is! (Note you should probably click on the picture to see the full size shot for the best quality).

So there you have it! I hope none of you thought Nathalie and I got pregnant or something...although I suppose it may have made for an more interesting blog. I'll be trying to post some more now that some of the tougher tests are out of the way in school, so don't miss me too much.

Have a good one!

XR

I'm standardizing my avatar across all of my game website accounts, and gamespot's was the last to be converted. I personally like this one a lot more and it will probably stay this for a very loooong time.

In other news I'm up to my neck in mid terms and assignments so don't be surprised if I slightly drop off the face of the earth for a while.

Also, Tuesday (about 30 minutes from now my time) is my 21st birthday! I'm pretty pumped, although it's not like the states where drinking because legal, since here in Canada it's 19. Regardless, it's a pretty big birthday and it makes me feel old haha.

That's all for now guys and gals, hope all is well with you!

XR

I'm just curious as to how many people are still stopping by to read my blog. I know that not everyone who reads it, comments on it, but there's been a decline lately and so I'm just wondering who's still around. I know a lot of it has to do with the decline in the visiting of gamespot in the first place, so I'm not really surprised.

I'm inching towards migrating my blog to Giantbomb, simply because there seems to be less and less of my friends kickin' around here a great deal. I'd still come back to read up on everone but posting long blogs isn't as fun for me when I don't get to talk to all of my readers.

So who do I still have with me out there? I've had such a great time here, that I'd rather it not end. I've made a bunch of great friends here (you know who you are...I hope hahaha) and I would like to thank you all for being a repeat customer to my often spectacularly boring blogs.

Have a good one,

XR

I'm what you might call a car guy. This is not to be mistaken for a gear-head, but I'm knowledgeable in just about every other aspect with cars thanks to my dad drilling it in to me throughout my childhood. I absolutely love cars, and so you can imagine I'm pretty in love with a good racing game as well. While I'll play just about any racing game, I like a pure arcade, or a pure sim, because the purgatory of the racing genre is an ugly, ugly place indeed. Recently both the Forza 3 and NFS SHIFT demos were put up on the xbox live marketplace, and so I quickly jumped on both of them to see how the compared. I have been interested in SHIFT ever since EA announced it, because I honestly was curious as to how a NFS game could possibly become a driving sim. I also have Forza 3 CE fully paid off on pre-order, so that should tell you how I feel about that series. I assure you that won't skew my views on SHIFT, as in reality, if both were good, I'd buy them both. Here's how they fared in my eyes:

NFS SHIFT

The demo is very much NFS. The presentation and narrator/cool foreign accent dude kick it off, giving you your car options and even giving you pointers on how to attack the course you're about to race. This is all very well done, and to be honest, it kind of made me feel bad #@$. I immediately turned all assists off (because that's how I race in Forza as well) and jumped into the Viper (my favorite car of all time). Now, Forza is widely known for its realistic handling and physics, and so I had in mind that this would be relatively the same deal. It was not however, and it wasn't exactly for the better. Outside of the Viper's already horrendous handling and torque steer, the car was barely driveable. It kind of felt like I was in a constant state of hydroplaning. The handling was really jerking and squirrely (again, waaay more so above and beyond what you'd expect from a Viper) and I actually had to quit out. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I'm a pretty damn good driver. People are usually surprised when they find out I'm using a controller and not a wheel because I have great precision. I'm usually in the top 5% of drivers for lap times in forza, and so needless to say, not being able to drive well in SHIFT was a bit of a hit to the ego.

In any case, I backed out, and turned the settings from Pro to Expert, which turned on ABS and set the TC to low. I also moved from the Viper to the GTR for its all wheel drive, and superior handling ability just so I knew I'd be able to actually finish a race. I jumped back in to the London track, and low and behold the car was manageable. It was still squirrelly as all hell, but I could at least keep it relatively smooth through corners. The game has an odd way of dealing with low speed corners, and low-medium acceleration out of them. It's like all cars at 1/4 throttle are rocket propelled and so instantly want to do a 360. Maybe it was me, but that's what it seemed like across all the cars I drove.

The problem with SHIFT is that it's a NFS game trying to be a racing sim. It still handles and drives basically like NFSMW with a driver's license, and so it makes attacking the game as a sim very difficult indeed. I don't think I could be anything but the "aggressive" driver with SHIFT, and to be honest I don't think I could beat it with damage set to realistic, without serious stress.

On the up side, the presentation is actually nice. It's not GT5 or anything (neither is Forza 3, for that matter) but it's very much in the NFS vein. The car sounds a pretty good, although I think maybe a bit too exaggerated. After 5 starring both events and unlocking the Zonda F, driving it sounded like a jet engine being grinded up in another jet engine. In reality the car does sound like a muffled Indy car, true, but not nearly as violent as SHIFT portrays it.

Overall it seems like a decent sim. If you tune the settings to play it like you would any other NFS game I think you'll probably enjoy it WAY more than if you attempt to play it as a sim.

Forza 3

I played an unholy amount of Forza 2, and before my friend took my copy away from me, I was closing in on having bought every car in the game, and finish up the last few races to get all the achievement points. Needless to say I was pretty excited to get my hands on the third installment, and while mechanically it isn't a quantum leap, what the game promises in its feature set has me totally pumped.

The demo has only one track, and a handful of cars to choose from, including the ever advertised Audi R8 V10. Instinctively I hoped into the Audi first, turned off all the assists, and went to work. If you've played Forza 2, then you're going to basically be right at home in 3. The game handles very much the same (for obvious reasons). You will notice, however, that the game feels a bit floatier. This isn't the same floaty that SHIFT had, this is more of an on ice feel. This partially depends on the car you're driving, but it's also because the game handles more realistically overall. It won't take you more than one or two races to adjust to the sensation, and you'll find it more natural than Forza 2.

The AI is still massively tough, and if you want to beat a car with a higher ranking number, you'll have to really know what you're doing in the corners. Personally, I'm a bit hit or miss in the corners unless I'm super used to a car, and so my best against the hard difficulty AI was 3rd, and 2nd against the medium setting. The rewind feature is a HUGE help in a game like this, and while many purists will want to throw holy water at the thing, many of us mortals will be forever grateful for its inclusion. I may be good, but there's nothing more frustrating than butchering the very first corner in a race, or tanking one on lap 7 of 8, only to lose your position for good.

Presentation wise, Forza 3 looks beautiful. Granted, it's no GT 5, but it's no slouch either. If you're super picky (and I can be sometimes) you'll notice that the lack of proper lighting has forced the team to over saturate the color of the cars. This is a non-issue in GT5, but to be honest it's not a big deal. If anything, it plays to Forza's overall feel and character. The only gripe I really have with the graphics is the lack of enough AA. I LOVE the 60FPS, but it kind of kills me to see a jaggy grill on a car.

There are an infinite number of features not available in the demo, and if you're interested in the game you probably already know about all of them. There is no doubt in my mind that this will be a fantastic game.

So there you have it. Have any of you played the demos? What do you think of NFS' entering into the sim racing ring?

That's all for now! Have a good one,

XR

Ok so I've gotten tired of ComputerPlayer1 as my gamertag. Not only does it not come across as what I thought it would to many people, but it just doesn't seem super original. I have 800 points kicking around from purchasing 1943, and so this is a good a time as any to spend some points. There aren't really any arcade games out or coming out that I'm interested in so whatever.

I've thought of a couple and checked their availability. I'll list them here, and I'd love to hear your opinions on them. Also, if you can think of something else you think might suit me, then let me know!

So far I have...

Teh Suxor
TheSwedishChef (the best muppet character ever)
Mysterious Fox (in tribute to Giantbomb's endurance run)
Captain Canuck
Lonely Tylenol (props to those who can figure this out lol)

EDIT: Well... little did I know, MS combined its user name base across xbox live, games for windows live, and the zune network. This means that though I thought these names were available (which technically they should be since they're non-existant on XBL) they aren't. So I ran a couple more names and these are two that I CAN use, so comment on these if you wish haha. I reeeeeally wanted TheSwedishChef but oh well

The new names are:

Robot Ninja Fox
Canuck Cavalry

That's all I have right now, so if you can think of others then I will try them as well!

I probably had more but I can't think of them anymore haha. Anyway, these would probably be the best of the bunch regardless.

I know this is an odd request, but let me know what you think or give me some more ideas!

Hope you're all doing well. I'm not writing as much due to school, but I'm still reading up on most everything you guys post.

Have a good one!

XR

Dear, sweet mother of @#%@#%^@%$^$#$#^$#^$@#^$#^@%^$%^$%. I have never been so stressed out and/or frustrated in all my life.

Last night whilst browsing the interwebs, I looked at my CPU temperature and noticed it looked a bit high for what it should be with my Vendetta 2 heatsink. I had had the guys at the shop re apply paste already, but it still seemed to be idling a bit high. This had bothered me for a while, but I only really got struck with the urge to do something about it 24 hours ago.

I promptly searched around to see what different methods of applying the paste there were. After much searching I stumbled across this wondeful little tutorial type deal that walks you through several techniques this guy tried before finding the best solution. I said to myself, "Self, how hard could this possibly be?" MAN was I stupid hahaha.

So I sat in c1ass all day, thinking about how awesome it will be to pull off the heatsink and do it myself, woefully unaware of the torture I was about to put myself through.

Anyway, I got home, and took out my old computer to practice a bit with dissmantling a heatsink. This would prove to be futile, as it was an AMD processor (they mount differently) and in a much less busy case. I moved on anyway, and begain the delicate operation.

I knew within the first 10 minutes that this would not be the quick in and out I was hoping for. Even in my fairly spacious tower, and with a motherboard that is set up to more or less be a lesser pain in the but when installing heatsinks, my giant hands had a painfully awkward time getting to the push pins. I eventually got the heatsink off, and immediately noticed that the paste that was on there wasn't spreading across the whole CPU. So I removed the paste, thinking how much smoother this was going now that it was off. Little did I know that putting the thing back on was going to be a circus.

I had to eventually take the tower's exhaust fan off, and take my RAM out, just so I could BARELY get my hands to the pins well enough to get a good grasp of them. After failing to even get the spreaders through the holes, dad had had enough and decided we should actually figure the mechanism out first. Eventually dad figured that you had to twist it all the way in one direction to unlock and pull the pin back to stop the spreader from being activated. Then you had to turn it half way back to push the pin down to secure it to the board, and then make one more half twist to lock it in place.

Figuring it out was the easy part.

Doing all of that basically blind was a complete circus. I don't know what OCZ was on when they decided that you could successfully push two pins on the diagonals at the same time, and that it was the best way to do it. Maybe you can, and we're just stupid, but we basically just had to go on intuition and a bit of luck. Eventually, it was in place. I know it's a good spread as we had to unmount the heatsink half way through due to one pin locking before being through the Mobo's hole. This was the only realy disturbance the new paste went through, so hopefully it didn't mess things up too bad.

So far things look pretty good. Where as I was idling around 44-45C while firefox was running and watching a video, and around 43C on the desktop idling, it's now around 40-41 in the browser and 39-40 on the desktop. This is all with my finally proven stable 3.6 ghz overclock, so I imagine I might have even lower temps if I was running stock.

This was definitely an interesting venture, and although it was incredibly intense and frustrating at times, I'm glad I did it for the experience. However, having said that I don't want to ever have to do it again for a VERY long time. My thumbs won't be able to handl it.

EDIT: Turns out I was a bit off on temps. It idols on the desktop at 37C! This is outstanding, and almost a 5C difference which is pretty substantial. Huzzah!

Have a good one,

XR

School begins again for me in 11 hours. This is my third year. I also apprently made the Dean's list in my first year...was not notified.

Adam: 2 ; SMU: 0

God Help me, another year hath arrived.

XR

This will just be a quick update before I go crash (just got back from a party). I had been crazy a game with ample loot, that was similar to Diablo II, and wouldn't you know it, someone made that exact game! Apparently Titan Quest is very popular amongst those who play it, but it's a love/hate amongst the community as some people whine about it being too much like Diablo. Well guess what, it's pretty damn awesome! I got a Steam account set up and purchased the Gold edition which comes with the expansion pack from 2007, and me and a couple of friends are going to play together. I had downloaded the demo from Steam and played all 3 hours of it straight, and really enjoyed myself. I look forward to waking up tomorrow morning and playing it alllll day (aside from working out and eating, of course).

In other news, whilst I went school clothes shopping and supplies hunting, I stopped in to EB Games and pre-ordered the collector's edition of Forza 3. I'm so excited for this game it's ridiculous. I loved the hell out of Forza 2, and all the new bells and whistles they've added to 3 have got me dying to play it. I'm feeling sorry for Nathalie already....a little bit, anyway

This = Sex^30

I was going to pre-order Dragon Age as well, but the game comes out in November, about 3 weeks away from final exams. I would be committing scholarly suicide by pre-ordering that game because I know I won't want to study with that sitting in front of me on my desk for a month. I'll buy it after I ace my exams. I've also decided that Mass Effect 2 will be my only other game purchase for the next 6 months (following Christmas) as I will pick up the other games such as Borderlands and Modern Warefare 2 for Christmas gifts. Yah, I totally plan that hard.

In a sort of related note, I recently got a letter from my University congradulating me on making the Dean's List. I'm super happy about this as I missed the mark in my first year by .03 GPA points due to a stupid prof. My good friend also made the list, and so we're going to totally go take our picture with our names on the plack in the Business wing!

Anyway that's it for now, I desperately need sleep, as dungeon crawling and loot collecting is a tough job. Oh and I guess I should be half awake for when Nathalie and I rent a movie, too.

Have a good one!

XR

Every year since I've been able to work, I've always chosen one slightly expensive thing that I would treat myself to after working hard in school, and at the job I had all summer. I'm very careful with my money so after I buy this one thing, it is usually the only major purchase I have for the rest of the year (the odd game purchase, notwithstanding). After thinking forever on what I would buy this year, I finally decided and just purchased it via Ebay since nobody ships to Canada these days.

A brand spankin' new pair of Sennheiser HD-485 headphones! Now, I don't consider myself to be an audiophile by any means, but I do love my music and have a great appreciation for a good quality audio device. I wanted something that sounded good for gaming and music which is apparently kind of hard to come by (you get one or the other, rarely both). After many hours of research I narrowed it down to the HD-485 or the HD-555. As soon as I read that the 485s had better bass and mid range, I was sold. It also helped that they apparently sound really good with dvds and games.

My only concern is that their impedence, although significantly lower than the 555s, is 32ohms. I love the onboard sound my 750i FTW mobo gives me, but I'm a bit sketchy as to how it will handle these suckers. My only comfort is that, upon the review date, CNET said these were the standard for Ipod listening. If an Ipod can make them sound good, I'll be damned if my Mobo hacks it. Worse case scenario is that I purchase a cheap amp to make up for it, but I'll cross my fingers that it isn't necessary.

I'm excited to see how these things perform. They have stellar reviews and many gamers swear by them (many of them CS players, and if you can please those crazies then...). I needed something for nightime play, or when I just needed to be extra quiet for everyone else in the house. These will also allow me to more freely use my 2.1 speakers for my xbox and tv, although I'll be interested in how these headphones sound on them as well. Luckily, my 2.1 speakers came with a splitter for the audio inputs, so I can just plug the phones right in to that. Shweeeet.

In any case, from here on out it's strictly game purchases. I've been thinking about what I'll be for sure spending money on, and I can say for certain that the big three will be Forza 3, Mass Effect 2, and Modern Warfare 2. Those games will keep me occupied for a VERY long time, which is good because Blizzard will probably delay SC2 another five times before it's actually released.

That's it for now guys and gals, have a good one!

XR

As you probably all have heard by now, Microsoft has been oh-so generous and dropped the price on their Elite console to an actually reasonable price of $299. This of course comes with the release and price cut of Playstation's new SKU, and subsequently puts the two consoles directly head to head for the first time since they both launched.

Now I could talk about the whole console war, but I won't since it's pretty straight forward (Xbox Live, or Cheap Blue-ray player, pick your choose). Instead, I just wanted to talk a bit about this whole price drop thing and what weirds me out about it.

It's obvious that when both consoles first came out, they were overpriced. Sure you have to count for inflation and new hardware and all that jazz, but consoles shouldn't be launching at a price over $299.99 in my opinion. Of course, since the market can handle it, that will never happen again, but I still think that $500 for a console is completely bananas. However, since this generation's lifespan will seemingly be double that of previous generations, this is basically the ringing of the bell for round 2. If this were a normal cycle, we'd all have Xbox 720s and Playstation 4s within the next 3 months, but I kind of like saving my money a little bit so I won't complain too much.

What really urks me about the price cut is on the 360 side. With the heavily equipped 120 gig Elite now taking over for the Pro model, it KILLS me that Microsoft has the balls to not drop the price of their seperate HDDs. It's a stretch that the 120s could go for $150 when the consoles were selling for three times that amount, but with the price drop, MS wants me to believe that the 120s are worth HALF the value of their top tier console?!!? I'm sorry, but that blows my mind about as much as trying to imagine what existed before the beginning of the universe. It's bad enough that a computer 120 gig HDD sells for literally half that amount, but this is just torture on the brain.

With all that aside, my mind wanders to something else. Now that the pro models are being phased out, what happens when my 360 inevitably dies again? Do they have a stockpile of pro models waiting to be infinitely sent out, or will we be magically receiving Elites sometime down the road? It's evident that they do seem to keep a stockpile seeing as how my first replaced Xbox was from 2006, and upon having that replaced they sent me an ORIGINAL. I'm talking November 13, 2005. I just know the odds of that surviving more than 6 months is a stretch...but I digress.

So what do you think about all this crazy price cut stuff? Do you figure the Wii is next up for one? What does this mean for the battle between MS and Sony's consoles?

That's all from me for now, folks! Have a good one,

XR

The good: Some of the best art direction you'll ever see; has the uncanny ability to tell a story without actually telling a story; will change the way you view the video games.

The bad: Some of the control tweaks that are supposed to make your life easier don't always work so well; a tad on the repetitive side.

Before Braid came on the scene and stirred up the now seemingly age old question "can games be art" thing, Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus (SOTC) arguably brought it to the mainstream's attention. With an all but silent protagonist, and an art sty1e that seems to have been ripped out of a watercolor painting, SOTC will have you wanting to more know about everything from beginning to end.

The game kicks off with what is now, for me, one of the most memorable opening cut scenes in any game to date. It takes you in on the tail of a hawk to sweep down and about the game's landscape, and introduces you to three of the games short list of characters. You are known as Wanderer, a name that was given to him but isn't ever really mentioned in the game. You have brought what seems to be your deceased girlfriend or wife to a beautiful temple in the hopes of resurrecting her. After a brief conversation with the bodiless voice of the temple's ruler (in which you hear the only dialogue Wanderer has for the whole game) you embark on your quest to save the girl. SOTC doesn't really present a story, but somehow still tells one through the silence of Wanderer, and his forever faithful horse, Agro. It will make you think about how stories in games can be conveyed, and will stir emotions in you from start to glorious finish.

As it turns out, the 16 statues that line the temple walls represent the 16 colossi guardians of the sacred land you've come to. If you want your beloved to open her eyes again, you're going to have to overcome some seriously poor odds, and defeat every one of them. With nothing but a sword, bow, and your trusty horse, Agro, you head out on to the plains in search of your first colossus. Luckily for you, the temple's guardian gives you a riddle of sorts that acts as a guide to the rough location of the colossus, and in some cases a bit of a hint as to their weakness. Unfortunately that's not usually going to be enough to get you to your destination without tireless guess searching, and that's where your sword comes in handy. Apparently the sword you carry happens to be a magical one, and when held up in the light, collects the sun's rays to form a beam of sorts that points you toward the next colossus.

"I immediately regret this decision."

It's around this point in your first few minutes with the game that you notice something missing. There are virtually no enemies to find anywhere. It's just you, your horse, and a few animals kicking around the fairly spacious land of SOTC. The only enemy you'll be defeating during your time with the game is the colossi themselves. Even then it's hard to call these lumbering towers of stone and earth, enemies. The more appropriate description in the context of the game would be to call them puzzles. Each colossus is a puzzle in and of itself, as they are defeated in a specific way that requires not only some thought, but some serious platforming as well. You can almost think of them as individual platform/puzzle levels that just so happen to be enormous, moving, living beings. Every one of them has one or more weak points that will have to be found and attacked with your sword before they'll be brought to the ground, and the variances in each colossus means that defeating provides a rewarding feeling every time. And while the difficulty doesn't necessarily follow a linear climb like many games, you'll never find them too hard or too easy.

The only true problem you'll encounter in SOTC is the controls. While they aren't the worst controls you'll ever have to deal with, because of the precision needed to defeat the massive colossi, they can become frustrating. The camera can be a bit spastic, and the controls are a bit on the loose side. This is a poor combination that won't really become apparent when riding out on the fields, but can becoming painfully obvious when half way up the leg of a colossus. All of this isn't to say that the controls will hamper your enjoyment with the game, but it may become something that you wish was a bit more polished.

"I don't know if I can jump that high..."

While your fingers might be fighting with the controls on occasion, never will your eyes be fighting to look away from the screen, and your ears be crying out for mute. SOTC possesses one of the most well realized artistic sty1es ever created. It's not just that the game looks like a watercolor painting; it's also that the game's art direction melds perfectly with the game's mechanics, story, music, and mood. It's great that there are games with fantastic graphic and artistic value, but rarely does it tie in with everything the game is as a whole. It's such an incredible experience when you see your first colossus. It's almost overwhelming, seeing it tower over you, and do more than just fill the screen. The scale is truly amazing, and provides a unique gaming experience that you won't get anywhere else. Each colossus looks drastically different, and their appearance plays into their personality. You'll experience the same breath taking feeling every time you see a new colossus. The music adds to the exhilarating experience, and mimics the action on screen. The over world music is soothing, but incredibly eerie, and the moment you grab on to a colossus, the music ramps up and does a great job of invoking emotion in you as you take the colossi down.

As you can probably guess, there are 16 colossi that you'll be wading through. SOTC isn't a long game by any means. At its longest, your first play through on normal difficulty would take you 12 hours, but it will probably fall somewhere in the 8-10 hour range. There are some options for you if you want to extend your time with the game, and although they aren't much to write home about, they just seem to fit within the context of the game. Upon defeating a colossus you can return to their body and play through that battle again. The screen takes on a film grain look that represents the battle as a memory of sorts. In a similar vein, upon finishing the entire game, a time attack mode is unlocked for all 16 colossi. There are a few unlockables available to you upon finishing some or all of the time attacks, and the game also holds some hidden goodies around the landscape if you so wish to go looking for them.

I don't know your name, but you better be worth it.

Although not perfect, SOTC is a triumph of gaming, and specifically, games as art. The fact that it has the ability to tell such a powerful story with such little dialogue is truly a feat worth of praise. In the relatively short amount of time you will probably play the game, it manages to hook you big time, instantly making you feel for Wanderer and the others. In the grand scheme of things, this game probably isn't for everyone. It may be one of those games that seem reserved for those who sip tea and talk about expensive paintings, but for those who take the time to play it, SOTC provides a truly unique experience that will change the way they view games in more than one way.

EPIC-O-METER: 9.0

Link to thumbs up/down

Have a good one!

XR

Every once in a while, a game comes along that is so well done, and leaves you with such a good feeling upon completing it, that it makes reviewing it extraordinarily difficult. Persona 4 is one of those games. On occasion, a game flies under the radar, even to the hardcore lovers of the related genre. Persona 4 is one of those games. If you enjoy seeing a lot of harsh critiques in a review, this might be where you want to stop. Persona 4 is an exceptionally well put together game that even those systematically barred from the Japanese RPG genre should sit down and play.

Persona 4 follows the story of seven drastically different high school students (and one…thing, for lack of better explanation), whose fates run the same line in a crazy train murder mystery. Your character is a city boy sent off to the back country town of Iniba for a year by his parents. You stay with your mother's brother, Dojima, and his daughter Nanako. Within the first few days you will be quickly introduced to Chie, Yukiko, and Yosuke. Soon thereafter, everything goes downhill and chaos ensues. Long story short, someone is throwing people into a world within T.V. (yah, that's not a typo) and those people are dying. Luckily for you, you discover your ability to enter the T.V. world whilst testing out the "Midnight Channel" that Chie brings up during school. From that point forward, you and your friends decide to solve the case, and so the game begins.

Say hello to the investigation team.

Persona 4 is nothing like you've played before in a JRPG (unless you've played prior games in the series, of course). The game centers around managing your time wisely, dividing your days up into spending time battling, social linking, and working, amongst other things. Social linking is the most important thing you can be doing at any given time, besides battling. The basic idea behind social links is that, upon making an acquaintance, every time you spend time with that person you work towards leveling up that social link. Each social link has an arcana attached to it, which in turn reflects in your ability to create personas (summons). This is incredibly important, and also a great deal of fun as each character has their own story line, and is incredibly well realized.

As mentioned above, you can also take on a number of part time jobs. These jobs will not only give you some extra spending money, but they also will boost one or more of your courage, understanding, knowledge, diligence, or expression stats. These each have levels to themselves, and at certain points they will allow you more dialog options. Progressing through some of the social links will even require you to be at a certain level in one of these before you can move on. The same goes for many of the more lucrative jobs. Some of the jobs have social links attached to them, making these stats a valuable thing to keep tabs on. Everyday actions will also boost these stats, along with reading books, so they are almost always being raised in some way.

I dare you to find another game with enemies like this. I DARE YOU.

When you're not befriending everything that breathes, you'll be dungeon crawling. Persona 4's combat takes place in individual dungeons that you take on one at a time in order, as the story progresses. Each dungeon has a specific theme, and a certain number of floors before the final boss battle. The combat is very much similar to any other JRPG kicking around. You've got your attack, skill, item, defend, and run options just like most games in the same vein. Your skills entirely depend on the persona you have equipped. This is where the real meat of Persona 4's battling is, as regular attacks take the back seat to persona skills 9 times out of 10.

Personas are basically summons like you see in many a JRPG, such as Final Fantasy. There are around 200 personas in the game, and you'll be lucky to see them all in your first play through. There are two ways you can obtain personas: Arcane chances, and fusing. Arcane chances occur at random after finishing battles. There are a few flavors of how these act out, but the basic idea is that you want to either match up to of the same persona cards, or just select the a card out of the bunch that are moving around. It's a bit hard to explain, but it's a simple risk/reward system that works great. The more effective way of obtaining personas is through fusing. Fusing is pretty self explanatory. Fuse a couple of personas in your possession to make a new one. It sounds simple, but there are a plethora of variables involved that takes time to master, but works almost flawlessly. The only real complaint here is that you cannot simply re-roll the persona you are trying to fuse so that you can inherit the other persona's skills you're looking for. Instead you're left backing out and re-selecting all the personas used to fuse the one you want, and hope to get the skills you're looking for. It's a small annoyance, and it really won't affect you much in any way, but it's definitely noticeable. As mentioned before, your social links play a big part in your personas. Each persona has an arcana attached to it, and the level social link you are with that arcane determines how much extra experience the persona you fuse receives. Everything in the game is linked together in some way, and it's all balanced so well that sometimes you'll forget it's even happening.

That's enough of the technical stuff. You probably want to hear about what makes this game fun, so I guess I'll give you the 401. The big draw here is the characters. I can't express how well done the characters of Persona 4 are. It's not just the main characters either. The full cast of every character you can social link with, and even those you can't, are all so well realized that you really feel connected to them all as if they were real people. Some people will probably disagree with that statement, and argue that they are simple characters that specifically represent a stereotype. That is most definitely true, but it serves the underlying story of the game incredibly well, and so I can't imagine them otherwise.

That's what she said! Oh wait...

It helps that the voice acting is possibly one of the best in any game I've ever personally played. Literally every character that has a voiced line is damn near perfectly delivered. There are very few exceptions (and by few, I mean like two) where the voice acting is just shy of comical, but for the 70-100+ hours your first play through will take you, every line is voiced incredibly well.

If you're normal, then that last sentence probably made you choke on your own tongue. This game is long. Period. If you don't enjoy spending horrendously long hours with a single game, then I suggest you go somewhere else. On the other hand, if you're reading this you're probably a JRPG player, in which case this won't phase you a bit. My first play through took me roughly 110 hours. It's largely for this reason, accompanied by just how realized and well delivered the characters are, that you will feel like you are actually good friends with everyone you meet in game. Unless you're a Vulcan, or the most apathetic soul on earth, you will become emotionally attached to the characters in this game. For me, it was such that I was sad to see the game end, and very much wanted to be able for it to continue, if only to spend more time hanging out with the gang.

The music is also very well done. The soundtrack comes with the game, and I'd be surprised if you didn't pop it in your computer and listen to the music every now and then. It's a blend of orchestral tunes, and some J-pop crazy that mixes surprisingly well, and couldn't possibly fit the game's tone and setting any better.

Outside of the usual breakdown, Persona 4 is just a mind bogglingly well polished game. The localization team should be given a huge trophy for the job they did, it truly is amazing. The rest of the game is also polished to a high gloss shine. When you're in the T.V. world for instance, the screen has a white noise effect and becomes boxed in much like a T.V. would. It's a stupid little thing, and one that most people won't notice until they're 40 hours into the game, but when you do eventually see it, it kind of makes you smile. There are countless such things throughout the game that will make you realize just how much love was put into this game.

If you know me well, you'll know that the pinnacle of RPGs in general for me is Morrowind, at least in terms of the realization. That was the last game that invoked such a deep emotional response in me, albeit for totally different reasons. However, with that being said, Persona 4 now ranks with Morrowind as one of my favorite games ever. Persona 4 was the most pleasant gaming experience I've had in years, and if you value my opinion, you should play this game. Go buy a PS2 if you don't own one already, and do yourself the favor of getting to know the cast of Persona 4.

EPIC-O-METER: 9.5

Link for thumbs up/down

Have a good one!

XR

Well, today was a bit better than the rest of the week has been. My xbox will be on its way tomorrow morning, and I got my computer's heatsink re-seated.

It still doesn't change the idle temperature of about 38-42C, but under load there's a significant difference. The big pain is that my bedroom is about 25C all day now that summer is in full swing. This just drives the heat up, and I'm sure in the fall/winter (which here in Nova Scotia makes up about 8 months of the year) the idle temps will be down around 30-35C.

However, I still want to make sure my load temps are ok with all you computer geniuses out there. I was going for 4.0ghz (tough to do on air) and I could do it but it takes a lot of fine tuning that I don't have the patience for so I gave up on that. Instead, I'm sticking with an OC of 3.8ghz. To be honest, I can't see much of a drop in performance from 4.0ghz so whatever. I still idle about 42C because I have my voltages currently at stock (1.25) and 1.10 on my FSB. Under the load of Prime95 which is seriously harsh, it won't go past 60-62C after an hour (at which point the cpu just wont get hotter). This is like a 10-12C temperature difference from the stock cooler. Not bad for air, no? In the fall and winter as I mentioned before, the temps will probably drop into the 50s at load. The beauty of course being that gaming won't flat line my cpu at 100% and so I suspect my load temps are in the 50s as is. Huzzah! (I think...let me know if you know haha).

I'm going to run Prime95 for a few hours just to make sure all is swell, but I'm pretty positive I'm ok. At most I'll up the voltages a bit on the FSB, but it shouldn't take much more. Maybe the core at 1.28 or 1.3 but I can't see it possibly needing more, even with Vdroop.

More good news! I'm into my 92nd hour in Persona 4 and I'm on the last two dungeons (going for true ending, here). That means you can expect a review in the very near future.

That's about it for now, I'll keep you guys posted on how things go. I'm going to run 3D Mark 06 tonight, and I hope to get close to 20,000 points. I could probably get very close with 4.0ghz, but I may still get 17 or 18k.

Have a good one!

XR

Well to make this short and sweet, as I am horribly frustrated, my 360 died on me, and my cpu heatsink isn't seated properly.

This weekend my second 360 decided to RROD on me, and so that's been packed up and I will ship it out tomorrow (I was sooo happy to learn they don't send you a box anymore).

As mentioned, my heatsink is doing jack all so it's obviously not seated properly, or the thermal paste was applied wrong. This is odd, as the guys at my shop are usually top notch. My computer still idles at 38C - 42C in a room that's 23C, and loads at 60C roughly after a half hour of stress testing. These are the exact same temps I had pre-heatsink, and it's not cooling down any faster either after coming off load. I will be calling them in the morning and requesting same day service, as well as on site testing for temp changes. I don't want to lug my computer back and forth 50 times for them to get it right.

That is all for now. Wish me luck.

Have a good one,

XR

Well, at least I think it is! Recently, Jody R of gamespot posted a blog explaining that she had a bunch of dvds from the golden age of gamespot kicking around, and that she wanted to give them out to some deserving users. All you had to do was explain why they would be awesome for you to have, and tell her about your gamespot history.

Well I sent her an email, not expecting to really receive anything because I knew a plethora of users would be all over this like white on rice, but as it turns out, I got them! I came back from house sitting the other day to find an air mail package full of 4 beautiful gamespot dvds covering E3 amongst other things, from 2003-2004. AWESOME

In other news, I ordered in my CPU cooler. I decided on getting the OCZ Vendetta 2 cooler, with some OCZ Freeze for thermal paste. It's received stellar reviews and I'm excited to see how cool my system will run with it, and subsequently how much I can overclock while staying under 50C.

Anyway, I must be going. The computer shop closes soon and I have a lawn to mow. The computer will be in the shop for probably 4 days due to this being a long weekend, so I may not be around until then.

I hope all of you are doing well! Fill me in on anything new and exciting!

Have a good one,

XR

Hey guys and gals!

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. I've been busy with my summer job, working with the kid's day camps again. So far things aren't horrible, but some of the kids can really get to me sometimes haha.

I'm working away at Persona 4 still. It's a ridiculously long game but I'm having lots of fun with it. I'm about 62 hours in now and so I'll be done soon hopefully. When I do eventually beat it I will post a review, and then move on to finishing SoTC. Nathalie is in France right now, so I have some extra time on my hands to get things done gaming wise.

How are you all doing? Give me a little update of your own!

Have a good one,

XR

I'll apologize ahead of time if the blog title got your attention and you were hoping for something like...say, a half naked chick. Unfortunately for you, this is another blog about my computer (I swear this will be one of the last for a while haha).

After a talk with my bestest friend in the whole world when it comes to computer talk (and she's tolerable, which makes things better), Chili dragon, I found out that my CPU running at 68C at load is perfectly fine, I had to go and re-overclock.

I had reverted my clockings for fear of heat (I'm on stock cooling with air only), but low and behold my 3.6ghz overclock at 1.15 volts runs at basically the exact same temperature...so why not?

I then got all brave and overclocked my GPUs as well. Again, they're idling at basically the same temp which is great (41C, and 49C). At load (running 3dmark06) they don't go above 70C which is apparently not bad at all for the cards. The only game I've seen make my cards go to the max I've seen of 72C is Crysis...so whatever. My core clocks are running at 735mhz, shader clock is at 1831mhz, and the memory clock is at 1030mhz. They won't go much higher than that without crashing, so it's awesome they stay so cool.

The WOW in the title is about my 3dmark06 point increase. At stock clocks on both my GPU and CPU, I was in the 13, or 14,000s. With these overclocks I'm getting 16,600 points! I'm super pleased with this, and I can see a fairly major difference in FPS in the harsh spots during the demo so this is great.

These little tweaks, coupled with a heatsink for my cpu which will be coming relatively soon, should give me a little extra juice to keep these "older" parts a bit longer before an upgrade. If I can keep the heat down, then these overclocks shouldn't shorten the life of the parts at all. In fact, with that heat sink, the CPU's life will only be increased. Huzzah!

Anyway, I'm done rambling about my computer for a while. I'm still working through Persona 4 and will review it when I'm done.

Have a good one,

XR

Well I got bored today and decided to educate myself in the fine art of overclocking. Needless to say, my attention span for reading walls of text on the subject was a bit limited, and after 2 hours, I just decided to watch a couple of videos and print off a guide and do it that way.

The big thing for me was that I run my computer air cooled only, stock cooler on my CPU and all, and so I knew that even though my E8500 can easily get to 4ghz, I wasn't going anywhere near that. Even though I'm still a bit of a computer newb, I knew that in order to keep my CPU alive for any length of time, I wanted to keep the core temp under 70 C when under maximum load. Word has it on the world wide web that its best to keep something called the TJ Max at around 30 C (and I took that as meaning you want to keep the core temp 30 degrees below the CPUs max of 100 C).

So onward I trekked! First I wanted to go to the upper end of what I thought I might manage on air, which was 3.8ghz at something like 1.3 volts. That was a bit much as it was going to hit the 80s under a load so scratch that. Next I tried 3.5ghz at around 1.2 volts. This was much better, and I played around with the volts, eventually hitting the ground at around 1.15 volts without blue screening.

I wanted to get a bit more, so I finally fell on 3.6ghz at 1.15 or 1.2 volts (can't remember, but with "vdroop" I'm around 1.13 volts. This actually gave me temps only 1 degree above the 3.5ghz setting and so I think I will stick with this.

I'm not content with the temps entirely though. I idle around 42 C, and after running the hour long OCCT stress test (runs your CPU at 100% for the whole time, save a couple of points where it drops to 50% for a break) both cores top out at 69 C. These aren't bad temps at all, considering it's summer and my room itself is about 22-24 C.

I think I will take my good friend, Chilidragon's advice and purchase a good heatsink for my CPU. I have no idea how much of a drop that will provide, but if it can get me idling in the 30's and loading at 60-65, then I'm a happy camper. If it does even better, then awesome! I will then jack it up to 3.8ghz and have a happy party. As a side note, I should probably mention that I use Real Temp 3.0 to get my readings. My understanding is that the sensor on the chip itself is the Tcase, or the temp inside the cap of the CPU, and is usually 10C cooler than the core temp. Correct me if I'm wrong, as that would be a bad thing to mess up on haha.

Before I wrap this up, I have a question for all of my computer saavy pals. If the computer doesn't blue screen, is that a definitive sign that you're supplying enough volts to the core? May be a stupid question, but it'd be great to know! Also, any other OC tips, hints, or things to know in general, would be much appreciated!

Have a good one!

XR

Ok so I know I haven't been in the PC game a long time, but these specs scare the crap out of me. If I'm not mistaken this is the first game to have a Quad Core as a recommendation...

Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista with SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
RAM: 1.5 GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

4 GB of Ram and a Quad Core for recommended specs blows my mind. Unless Bioware decided to do recommendations right and put down specs that won't run the game at bare minimum, then these are quite high. The GPU is the least most offensive thing in the list, but damn, an 8800GTS? The game looks good, but it's not Crysis for God sake hahaha.

For those of you who are buying this game, what do you think? I know that personally I'm a bit worried as my Wolfdale is only a Dual Core, and I'm running 4 Gigs of RAM, not to mention I'm skimming past the 8800GTS mark with SLI 9800GTs. I'm sure I'll be fine, but I wanted to max everything out! Who knows though, I might still be able to, only time will tell.

If you're not buying the game, still, let me know what your take on this is, I'd love to hear it!

Have a good one,

XR