Vendetta x360a's Blog - Apr to Jun 12 (23 followers)

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So much to say both gaming wise and personally.

Lets get the personally out of the way. I know it is a very general thing to say that one doesn't deal with death very easily. I just have such a hard time with it even if it isn't someone I was just acquainted with. Last year was my most trying year on an emotional level with deaths. I just have never had to deal with deaths to those close to me up until last year. For that I feel blessed. A curse of that is having to deal with all that emotion at the point of my life I am at. I lost my last grandparent last year, it was last July 4th actually, which is my dad's birthday too. The winter prior to that I studied abroad in Korea and went to school and got to spend some time with granny. I have never been more pleased with a decision my whole entire life. Had I not, I would have regretted it until the day I die.

Fast forward to last fall and around the time of my best friend's birthday, we had a friend pass away at the young age of 19. This hit me like a ton of bricks. I have never cried so much in my entire life. To see someone who was vibrant and living life to fullest and just like that she was gone. Her family are wonderful people and it just broke my heart to see them lose their daughter to an accident like that.

About 2 months later, a fellow co-worker, who I admit I didn't know that well passed away in a car accident. She and I had one of those office like relationships just saying hi how are you and some small talk. Another life cut tragically short. Having already dealt with what I had the months prior I just lost it emotionally. I tried to cut off most emotion for fear of anxiety taking over. It really was one of the most trying years I have endured in my 30 years of being alive. I am stronger for it and came out okay but emotionally drained.

Fast forward to last week now. One of my friends from high school had his brother pass away. I was speechless. The manner at which this happened just hit me like a ton of bricks. Lots of questions asked. Lots of wondering and lots of emotion. I realized at this time that I really am at a loss for words and it made me ponder this:

"What can you say to someone on what is quite possibly the worst day of their life?". My friend's mom answered my question when I gave her a big hug and was speechless, she quite simply said, "There are no words" as she fought back the tears. She then gave me another hug and lectured me saying, you call your sister. You tell her you love her and that you will never stop loving her. By this time I was full on open the floodgates crying. I will admit I am quite soft when it comes to crying. No shame in it as my friends say. It just means you have a good heart.

Now you might ask what is the point of all this? I just kind of felt I had to pour it out onto someone or something. Writing it makes me feel like I have learned something from all this death and that I am a stronger person for having dealt with it best as I could without suffering some sort of breakdown. The lessons you learn from others in death are powerful. I just wish we as human beings would learn while they are living too. I am amazed at what my 19 year old friend taught me in light of her death. Since then I have taken those words to heart, but I just realized I haven't fully embraced these words:

"Live life to the fullest".

This blog will be a symbol of a promise to do that every single day to the best of my ability as best as I can. Whether it be a hobby I enjoy, or working my tail off, or just spending time with friends, to a simple text message to my sister saying I love you sis. That is what life is all about. Live it love it and embrace it.



I know I just wrote a novel... So I will cut the next part short.


I finished Skylanders over the course of the week. I was partially motivated by phatal1ty's completion of it so thanks to Lei for that. . I really enjoyed the game. Those of you who have not played it, I fully recommend getting Terra-fin. Makes a world of difference for a few achievements. It looks easy and all but man they ratchet up the difficulty a notch later on in the game. I managed but wasn't expecting to get tested like that lol.

I decided to move onto a new project of sorts. Finish 1 as I like to call it. I currently have multiple games on my card lacking one achievement and it really is starting to bug me. So back into mini completionist mode for me. Then onto Portal 2 most likely. Though with Spec Ops The Line coming out tomorrow... that might all get pushed aside.

Going to be boosting Inversion hardcore with a local buddy. He is finally getting around to doing the dual box thing while I quad box since you can't do Team Deathmatch or Team Objective without 6 people. So rather than share kills, we are going to be boosting that and finishing it.

As I said, a short little blog telling you guys what is up with life. I really am trying to immerse myself in games to not think so much so if I seem flaky or not talkative please by all means call me out on it or even better invite me into party chat so I don't turn totally anti-social.

Till next time keep it poppin'!

Hit kind of a mini lull last month. Between working alot due to my parents being gone and me being in charge, well kind of in charge. Which in turn made me hit the wall so to speak and not game very much. That was the start of the month, upon their return my hours were scaled back to what they normally are. Truth be told I really don't mind working a lot since ya know I gotta make that money. Hell had it not been for Borderlands JP, code_18, and NCIS my point total for the first half of the month would have been laugh worthy. On top of all of that I really started to get into prep for softball mode. My team wins the city competitive league championship every single year.

That said I did complete the following:

Resident Evil: Op. Raccoon City
-Did the last DLC pack to "complete" the game. Easiest of the 2 packs IMO. Glad to have this complete and hope they do more DLC for some more easy ass points.

code_18
-Obviously this one was very easy. Decided to read stuff on the computer while doing this. Took roughly an hour. Thanks to play-ryot.com for this one.

NCIS
-Better than CSI, then again that isn't very hard to do.

Battleship
-Oh BattleSHIT. I tried to like you and you are not that bad for a movie tie in but some of the grindy achievements were total horse shit. Namely the Fish In A Barrel one. I swear it took like 80-100 kills stunning with that LVAD for this one to pop.


Progress:

Darksiders
-Been lazy and am right before the final boss before I have to do my apocalyptic play. Will do this after Orochi is finished.

Warriors Orochi
-Should have this one done by the weekend. Its been a fun one to play. Will probably start 2 fairly quickly after I finish this one.

The Darkness II
-Made my buddy pick this one up during the BB sale for $13 the other day. We ripped through all the co-op in a couple of hours. Going to start the SP here soon.


On The Horizon:

Probably going to start up some boosting. After seeing BL4CK SiLv4 join a boosting session earlier today, I got the motivation to start the grind on the MP on The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and plus it is a gold weekend (Yes Ryot, I've been too damn lazy to get the family plan or is it cheap... )

Can't seem to decide what game to play on the side while doing the grind that is Orochi 2. I probably should get around to doing the last bits on Shadows of The Damned and NCAA BBall 10 or getting Lego Pirates out of the way to even out the ole GS to a 0 or 5. I will most likely end up resuming something already on my card. I do have like 4-5 games that are almost complete. Perhaps I should get into more of a completion mind set.


Just decided to write a quickie. I have another blog planned for this weekend or on Monday at the latest. Will be more personal and I will drop a code for a male avatar item. I also will touch on my plans for boosting and co-op ing!

There comes a time when everyone and I mean everyone finds a sage in their life that gives advice. It can be really personal, more casual, or even regarding your likes and hobbies. I say this because on not only one occasion but on two occasions now I have heeded the advice of my gaming sage and it has panned out wonderfully. Granted it wasn't really deep or philosophical in any sense but just some grand advice/ a kick in the pants to stop procrastinating.

Those of you who game with me know I try to game on a frequent basis with Ryot Control and he is kind of influential to me (in both bad and good ways) in terms of gaming etc. There was a time when I was a 2 xbox guy. It became a royal pain the ass to try and depend on others. One day while Ryot was listening to my nonstop bitching he just spouted out self-quad box. Little did I know such an endeavor would end up solving pretty much all my issues. Now unless it is a 16 player achievement (ala Turok, Rainbow Six Vegas, etc...) I don't have to depend on many others. It certainly made Gears 1 boosting tolerable and will help on Sniper Ghost Warrior and a few others I can self boost.

The 2nd being the purchase of a Japanese region xbox. This was a wonderful decision to do. I am enjoying playing Borderlands for a 2nd time. Granted Mad Moxxi sucks (admit it Ryot, it sucks despite being easy with modded weapons and shields) but at least party chat with Nick & phatal1ty have made it bearable. When I had done it on the NTSC version, I had to carry 2 under leveled people . That said I am looking forward to whatever other stacks and SHMUPS I can get my hands on. Yet another sound piece of advice from Ryot. Though his sound advice comes at a price usually (aka me spending money buying more boxes).

Prior to his departing, he had been putting a bug in my ear about octo-boxing. And no it really isn't a thought at the moment as I want to save my pennies to get this:



However as is always the sage will eventually win out and I will probably be the proud owner for 9 xboxes (he also was trying to get me on board with a PAL region one).

phatal1ty and I were in party chat last night describing flakiness in general and how it leaves a sour taste in our mouths. It really does and is probably the reason I haven't been boosting much lately and just been taking in single player. I suspect my hatred towards flaky people will only grow and I will be the typical American and throw money towards the problem to make it go away. Flakiness will be the subject of a future blog. I will delve a bit deeper into my issues with it and some of my issues with gaming in general at some point.

Speaking of Ryot, when he talks take in everything he says. Yes this blog was both about my experiences with Ryot and his advice, to be honest he has offered me personal advice as well but I am not blogging about that as that is kinda private. If you ever get the chance to be in party chat with him do it. Ryot is one of a kind. I look up to him and respect him both due to his serving our country but also because he is just one of those people you read about that always gives it their all 100%.

That said it is also a plug for his amazing writing, which is at its best here:
Ryot Control's blog post - As hard and worthwhile as you want it to be.


I have a feeling when he does return, we will experience some more of his very deliberate trolling antics like Yunder & I had to be like What Is This Madness!?!?!! He will have more stories to share, more advice to give, and be back with a vengeance like only Ryot can do.

My next blog will be about some of the people I have met through Xbox Live, my experiences, my hopes, and of course all the memorable moments and one liners that I can remember. I think it is very much overlooked at the relationships you form even through something simplistic as online gaming.

Last and certainly not least a big congrats to Deek on hitting 100K. Very proud of you man and have enjoyed your writing as well so keep it up.

Till next time...

Keep It Popping!!

First off I want to say I am back to writing. I will try my hardest to blog more often but as of late it has kind of been on the back burner.

Anywho here is some of the progress I have made over the past couple of weeks since my last blog

Race with phatal1ty progress:

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Moi: 415
phatal1ty: 325

Darksiders
Moi: 660
phatal1ty: 80

Jillian Michaels' Fitness Adventure
Moi: 0
phatal1ty: 450

Totals:
Moi: 1075
phatal1ty: 855

Finally took the lead. In between my time spent playing easy stuff (more on that later), I have been pounding out Darksiders. I can't gush enough about how much I love the game. I will be looking out for the JP Stack when it comes closer to the 2nd one being released. I only have to grind out the Environment Kills and level up the weapons and I will hit up the final boss, then I will have to replay it again. I really should have just started it on Apocalyptic but its okay I can power through it.

I am going to hold out on going to Enslaved for the moment though because I am going to play Rage. Doing the co-op with Mr. YUNDERSTAND

Moving on, I actually managed to score some points over the past few weeks!

Games Finished:
code_18 :
This was an early Sunday morning completion. While on my computer, I had my iPad on my side so when the choices came up, all I had to do was click. Very painless. Thank you to StophJ for letting me know how quick this one was since I had no idea it was THAT easy. This is a loaner from Ryot Control so those of you asking to borrow, I am sorry I cannot loan it out.


NCIS:
Not much to say about this one... It was better than CSI but that really is not saying all that much. I had this one in from GF for about a month . So yeah... slacking and not wanting to play shit easy games bit me in the ass for my GF sub this past month. This one is on its way back and hopefully I can get one of the new releases next week that are at the top of my queue.



Games Started:

Family Game Night:
Had to get the 1 online achievement in scrabble. I will be doing this sometime down the road, or 1 game at a time.

Borderlands JP:
Don't know how many messages I got from my friends list about this one being region free. No it is not. Have to have a J-Box for this one. This is one of those games I could play on and on and on in all honesty. I loved it from the moment I played it. Can't believe that when it came out that I didn't have it pre-ordered. . Definitely one of my favorite games this gen. Did a majority of this co-op style with Stoph & phatal1ty (who was nice enough to dupe me a Rose Omega and a dirty dirty shotgun that kills anything in one shot.


Games Resumed:

BFBC2:
Finally finished story. Only online stuff left to do. I like the online, so it won't be that painful to do.



Upcoming Pick-Ups:

Not much for the next 2 months. I decided to get Max Payne and pass on Game of Thrones. Will be getting Lollipop Chainsaw and Ghost Recon Future Soldier as well. I will be trying out Spec Ops' Demo before making a decision on that and that should probably do me new games wise until NCAA 13 hits in July. I do kind of want Phantom Breaker & Akai Katana but I might just wait it out as I have so much to play already.


Rather than do a beer of the blog like always, I am going to do Foreign Music of the Blog (in this case K-Pop since I am Korean and all).



Love the K-pop. Infinitely better than most of the shitty American pop music there is.



Till next time! Keep it (achievements) poppin!

Recent pick ups over the past month ish or so.

First off is a piece of artwork courtesy of the Bioware online store. Had to pick this one up despite it not being signed by the artist this go around. The main reason is because the Space Needle is in there. I cannot overstate how much I love the city of Seattle. I love the rain and the 3 times I have been there it has been an awesome experience. Plus I got #2 out of 500




Picked up this monitor for $80 out of pocket. It was $130 but I had $50 in GC at amazon. So for an LED that has integrated speakers and is pretty much going to be used for playing one of my 5 xboxes at my desk it was totally worth it. I was originally going to spend the money and get the PS3 3D display but it refuses to drop to that magical $250-$200 price point. I know I could have gotten the deal with the glasses and games for $330 I think? but I already have a pair of 3D glasses and have zero interest in playing MLB The Show. If it happens to drop to that $200 price point I will probably get one without hesitation and use this monitor as my actual computer monitor.




On to the games though!

A majority of the following were picked up on sales, B2G1F, or on the cheap or some sort of deal. Only paid MSRP for Silent Hills, Orochi 3, Metal Gear & Blades of Time

Last months Best Buy coupons were good to me. Rage for $5, Arkham City for $10, FFXIII-2 for $15.

Dead Rising OTR was $13 new, LA Noire Complete for $20 is a steal since I don't have any of the DLC nor the season pass, the two College Hoops games are actually kind of rare and I got them for $15 for the pair.








I still can't seem to kick this nasty habit of buying Collectors/Limited Editions.

I love the Dragon Age:Origins wood box CE. It is quite pretty looking. The LOTR one was purchased on the cheap. $40 at gs but I had a $10 off coupon so $30 for the CE is a good deal. I picked up Prototype 2 on release, SF x Tekken was purchased with credit and it was on "sale". Witcher 2 was a day 1 pick up, that will be played after Darksiders is finished. And I waited and waited and Saints Row The Third's CE went down to $70 so I had to bite at that price.










Since we are going to be going into a minor lull in terms of new good games, I am going to take the opportunity to knock out some of these games. Well at least I hope. I think I am at a point where I am very sour on MP and just not wanting to do much there. I think I will take this time to enjoy loads and loads of single player.