Monday, January 26, 2009

Happy Lunar New Year!

It's finally a long weekend for me, and I feel obliged to blog about something, but what? I've wished Merry Christmas already, made my New Year Resolutions, and now here comes LUNAR New Year and I'm running out of stuff to blog about that would compliment this occasion, and I do not want to talk about whatever boring stuff that has been happening around me recently.

Okay so I'll just randomly come up with a topic. Recently I've been thinking about people who go "I specialize in RPGs" when I try to introduce them other games. Worse, I'm 99% sure they meant 'JRPGs'. How the hell do you specialize in JRPGs? There's almost no skill involved in that genre and that means EVERYONE can 'specialize' in it. People who take it further by saying "I am good in RPGs" make me cringe. How do you define being 'good' at RPGs? In FPS' you are good when you can aim well, shoot well and make use of the environment well. In RTS, you are good by adapting to your opponent's strategies. But RPG? You are good by getting to level 99, obtaining all titles, items etc, all of which is possible by just investing time.

You don't have to think to be good at RPGs. You just need to know where to find the items, grind levels and making sure you don't miss out anything. If I managed to get everything in an RPG, I wouldn't say I am GOOD in that RPG. It just means I've spent hours on it.

So the point of the topic is, people who say 'I specialize in RPGs' are using it as a lousy excuse to avoid playing other kinds of games. If they say 'I only like RPGs' then I would simply let it slide because they are not interested in the first place. But 'specializing RPGs' is just dumb.

/end Lousy Rant.

Happy Lunar New Year :)

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Finally, the end of the beginning.

08 has been a very hectic year compared to 07. As I remember, 07 consisted of me trapping my workaholic-for-no-returns self in my room programming engines and games. 08 began with a change in perspective with me self-reflecting to myself alot. Why am I doing this? Is this all worth it? Is there anyway out? Do I have my exits covered? I'm striving to be part of the society again, something I lost touch for the past 2 years. And the moment I think I finally made it, NS happened: Friday the 13th, June 2008, I was enlisted (mono intake) into Paris Camp, Commando Training Institute, Basic Tactics Wing.

I can't really say I didn't fully enjoy my stay there. My sergeants and sirs were great men which I grew to respect, especially my PC and my PS, both great imo in different ways. That's the advantage of have instructors that are regulars I guess. I made a lot of great friends, two great buddies, met a 4chaner and met a few gamers. Overall the company there is actually better than I expected. My bunkmates are the bestest. I guess I was lucky. That's what I keep telling myself to keep myself going. Not many were chosen to be trained by the best of the best.

Then a question dawned onto me: Do I truly want this life? Despite the great bunkmates, the friends I've made, I still felt like there is a hole in my heart, a gap that cannot be filled if I continue as a CDO. It's probably the lack of freedom. CDO Unit life sounds pretty bad; heard it's like 14 days before a book out. That's like confinement period twice a month. I don't really felt like confirming the rumor so I sounded out my back injury which I obtained during BMT, which I'm glad I did, since it seems to be worsening. I'm not sure how I got it...probably from the sudden straining of muscles after 3 years of not even exercising. The good thing about joining CDO is, I'm finally fit again.

After like a month of dreading of my vocation, I ended up as a Signal operator. My stay in Signal Institute has been rather fun, quite slack, and alot of mental stress. It's like a cultural shock to me. It's almost like studying in school again. Playing around with all kinds of huge signal equipments is fun. I entered driving course after a month stay in my posting in 3sig. Driving course felt like the other end combat vocations. Everywhere is great. You just do your lessons and the rest of the day is yours. Too bad I can't disclose anymore information in blogs. Right now, all I can say is that I'm rather enjoy life in driving course despite the saturday book out.

Video games this year has been great. Fallout 3, Fable 2, FF:Dissidia, Rock Band, and many many others. Even with NS, 2008 has been a rather eventful and fruitful year for me.

New Year Resolution 2009:
1) Successfully apply into a university
2) Exercise running
3) Play moar games
4) Stop being lazy