console gaming

My recently bought Xbox 360 is providing me with short but pleasant gaming experiences. I don't play it much, as most of my time is still devoted to World of Warcraft (although things will change next week, once I finally get new shoulders for my Paladin), but those fleeting gaming hours have been surprisingly enjoyable.

Two years ago, I considered myself a JRPG fanboy. I played nothing but J-RPGs and the occasional Metal Gear Solid. My life post-WoW, though, is completely different. My MMO-exclusive years have given me a newfound appreciation for the Western RPG style, which, coupled with the utter lack of quality J-RPG releases that greatly dampened my enthusiasm for the genre, I reached a point where I haven’t a clear first choice when it comes to Western or Japanese. I'm looking equally forward to Final Fantasy XIII, Dragon Quest IX and Diablo III – back in the day, there wouldn't be even a competition, FFXIII would win. And not only because of Snow Villiers (although he’s surely a boner-inducing sight factor).

I have to say, console gaming feels awkward after spending so much time gaming on a desktop. I don't think I'm still used to controllers again, and that was the most natural thing ever. The games themselves are also so… different. Not only from WoW but also from the last generation I was so familiar with. One of the strangest things to me right now is not having people to talk to while I’m gaming. MMOs might have their several flaws, but their main quality – fostering sociability – is outstanding in more ways than one, and once you get used to chatting while you’re playing, it's hard to go back to solo gaming. I plan on joining Xbox Live ASAP.

So far, I've played mostly Fable II, The Last Remnant and Street Fighter IV, all very good games. Even though I'm hopeless in SF4, Abel is just so goddamn hot I feel the, let’s call it, "urge" to play. Even though I inevitably get spanked (...which is really hot, actually). Abel skyrocketed straight to the top of my list of favourite fighting game characters (formerly composed of Ramon from King of Fighters, Mitsurugi from Soul Calibur, Eddy Gordo from Tekken and Daigo from Rival Schools) in no time. Shame my personal god Shoutaroh Kojima isn’t a fellow fan!

it's a wonderful life

I actually spent a whole month without writing anything. There are a few reasons for the prolonged absence.

- I was on vacation throughout September. This blog was created as a way to cool off while working: every single entry I published here was written during idle hours at work. Since I had the whole month off, I was already pretty cooled off with gaming marathons and overslept mornings... and that kinda defeated the purpose of writing.

- I'm back to work right now... but they blocked access to Blogspot in my absence. The firewall is - or rather, was based on a whitelist: we had a list of allowed sites, and anything that wasn't on that distinct category was off-limits. But, alas, they decided to blacklist a few terms, one of them being "blog". So access is denied to any website with the word "blog" in it, even those who were previously okay, such as blogspot.com (it's a Google website, and everything Google was formerly whitelisted).

- I'm slightly depressed due to returning to my job. And I don't mean specifically my job (it's the same old boring crap - nothing changed... or will ever, I think), working in itself makes me depressed. I miss my early days at college. I could slack off all. Day. Long. And maybe even study, if I had time left over! Growing up and having to work in order to pay the bills majorly sucks.

- I'm slightly depressed due to returning to my country. New York City is (almost) everything I ever wanted in a city. Its quality far outweight its flaws, it's not even funny to compare it with São Paulo. I'll write a proper post later... I've been setting that back for a while, since even thinking of New York makes me sad I'm not there anymore. Writing a full post on the trip will make me wanna kill myself - or immigrate. Those American blonde hunks are really something else entirely.

While this outlet of rants and memoirs won't be completely forsaken, right now I'm as uninspired as I can get. Add to the fact that I can't seem to register to Xbox Live (I bought an Xbox 360 Elite in NYC), three quality members of my guild stopped playing and I have to resort to farming regular 10-mans when we could perfectly shoot for Trial of the Crusader Heroic, and yeah... life sure is exciting these days.