Post Holiday reflections of 2011

So another Christmas has come and gone. my 27th one to be exact and I am very happy to say I've made it this far! Another holiday of good times with friends and family, wonderful gift exchanges, and of course, plenty of people ignoring what this Holiday is truly about and even more trying to make people like me who remember very much so who and what this holiday is all about, ignorant like them. However, christians are cunning, swift, smart, and very creative. We find loop holes in logic. Take for instance, the following photos of very creative christians (i'm assuming). See these people whining about nativity scenes can't complain now, because there is no visual connection to anything religious, yet we all make the connection anyway. Thank you to http://www.oddee.com/ and these wonderfully talented individuals for fighting the good fight!

Coolest creative Nativity Scenes!

And my personal favorite just because it pulls at my dork heart strings:

Horror Corner: Maniac! Review

So the introduction is like alot of other slasher films. We see a random couple who end up in the wrong place at the wrong and then seperate for just enough time for some psycho to come and kill them both. Further in we go and its no longer a slasher film because we now see the "maniac!" What's with the hooker motel room scene? The killer looks pretty strong yet he looks like hes using all of his strength to strangle this chick and yet shes still able to scream loudly. If he was that weak, she could have kicked him in the balls or something, although he is kind of fat. Still that kind of throat throttling would have kept her from making any noise.

So right off we see just how crazy this guy is. Why does he breathe so heavy when hes watching people. It's more like a growl like that shitty version of Bane is the horrific fourth batman film. I do love the music and sound effects used during this decade of horror films. These days we have nothing even close to it. The shotgun death scene was pretty cool. In the end I have to say this isn't the worst horror film out there. It has its moments and jumpy parts if you are looking for a creepy old fashioned scare.

The Elder Scrolls V: GLITCHrim

Oh man, have I complained about this game so much on facebook. But Seriously, such a highly praised game, and at the same time, what a piece of shit. I understand this game isn't compatible with the OS or whatever on the playstation, but then don't release it! I don't care if I would have missed out on such an addicting game. It puts me through hell more often than I have fun playing, and now I am locked in a fierce one on one battle with this pile of garbage thats trying to deny me my second platinum PSN trophy, but I will prevail, oh yes I will. Now, to the point. Let me take you on the journey I have gone through..................

So I begin the game totally new to this series with no clue where to go, or what my map compass at the top of the screen is telling me. At this point all I know is this may not be the most beautifully crafted world but it is pretty damn amazing. Before long I am kicking bandits out of mines, forts, and caverns. Hell I even crossed spiders, bears, wolves, dragons and Vampires. I contracted the disease without knowing what happened. Before long I go into my newly purchased whiterun home to dump loot off. I step backoutside and all of a sudden this lady walking by starts trying to the kill me! What the hell did I do? I sheath my weapons in surrender, but no, the sons of bitches kill me. (thank you auto save). I figure out now that I am a vampire, and naturally people want to kill me. Busting out my trusty Iphone I search the IGN guides on skyrim vampirism. Apparently I have been diseased for days and now I am so far gone people attack me on site. I searched how to cure it, went on quite an adventure, and finally pulled it off. Now I learned my lesson, use the strategy guides on the net! So I decide to start quest lines next.

I finished the college quests, the theives guild, and I begin the Civil War quest. I get through the rebellion pretty far and now I go to this camp and receive orders to attack this fort from the General. Meet some comrades outside of the fort, so I follow to the, now familiar, big white arrow on my map and compass. I arrive to a big empty green hill and about five feet above the ground floats the white arrow way marker. Not a person in site. So I go to the fort. Easy enough, I can take this fort myself. So I bust on through and what happens? A nice message appears on the top of my screen: MISSION FAILED (kill all remaining soldiers 100%) This simply means I did not meet up with my comrades but I can still take the fort. One problem. Remember when I did my early plundering? I must have raided this fort on my journey to see the world. Now the game is glitched saying there are 100% of the enemy in the fort, when the place is empty and quiet. Now for the first time Skyrim has spun me into a new demension of pissed off. I had just let my "7 day" return policy at gamestop pass me by because the game freezing up only happened once in a while, but now this? Oh so you have the balls to call this a "massive open-world" game? I think it needs renamed. "Massive open-world game but you cannot explore unless you do the proper missions" What a bunch of bull shit.

So the days drag on, the game freezes constantly making me want to throw it through a wall. It seems it would freeze right when I was diving in and getting really hooked on my current mission. Bethesda releases their first patch and it makes the game even worse. NO, you can't delete the patch if you have already played and saved your game with it, I tried. Anyway they next put out a memo saying to turn off auto save and what do you know, this actually works. Problem is I have to save every 5 min because I might die, or the game might freeze still. Motherfucking assenine bullshit.

So I push on, my character is strong as hell and I realize that I am gonna get this platinum trophy, I am almost there. Though I glitched the civil war mission, I just decided to start a new game and play a different race and just get that one trophy, and then back to my original game. BIG MISTAKE. This saved over my original. Oh now I am pissed. The strategy guide I bought took the full force of my madness. It's limping now but its a tough little soldier. So now I am stuck with this bogus character I dont care about as much. I am just powering through now to gather the rest of the trophies now (10 side missions) (15 artifacts) and then I am done. I wont touch this nightmarish piece of garbage until its patched over, and then I can do whatever I want since I wont care about failed mission glitches. I might even slaughter every killable NPC in it and declare myself ruler of all, fuck it. I hate this game. I am still addicted to it though. Bullshit.

Final Fantasy IX: I'm ready to accept my platinum now

Just thought I'd talk a little bit about my favorite video game of all time!

My latest save file. The fastest and safest way to level up that I have found is in memoria, the final dungeon. Look for a bridge with a waterfall and a save orb on the bridge. If you back track one area you will encounter this guy, the Chimera:

This guy will pick on whomever lands a blow to him, and he can be very nasty if you are not prepared. He starts with venom breath, which poisons and stops your character, essentially leaving them a sitting duck with slowly draining health, and then he'll freeze you, a temporary status effect which leaves the target vulnerable to any physical attack, shattering (KOing) them. The next attack is what you want, virus crunch. This puts virus on the target. Have three characters infected with this status and move back to the bridge.

I suggest moving forward one screen past the bridge for level 40 to 80 characters. Once past 80 its safer to hang around the save orb. In this next "false" underwater room, you will find two enemies.

Iron Man

Stilva

Iron man will cast protect to lessen the damage your people can inflict, and cast might raising his attack power which can be dangerous as with a high attack power hes also able to use a move called "cleave" hitting everyone. Other than that he shouldn't be much trouble. For Stilvas you want antibody ability equipped because he will venom strike you, and watch for Firaga as his magic is very powerful. These two should be easy to take out in two rounds, and eventually one with three power hitters. Now the virus effect on the three characters will not let them have exp or ap but all the total exp goes to the fourth you left untouched, so you are gaining 42,000 exp a battle, and with the level up ability equipped, even more. Once your party is strong and you want to earn a tiny bit more and be closer to the save point, move back to the bridge you will meet a familiar creature to the FF series, the Behemoth!

Behemoth

This guy packs quite a punch just with his slashes and charges, but what makes him very dangerous is his reaction to physical attacks: Meteor Counter

He will often counter your attacks with the black magic spell meteor which can do lethal damage (4000 - 5000 hp) even to lv 99 characters. Best way to deal with this is to have your attacks with counter and eye4eye abilities equipped. Let him strike one and your characters will counter attack. With high level attackers using mp attack ability and their strongest weapons, the damage should be 8000 to 9999 in damage. You can kill the behemoth with one round (three hits).

Also in the false underwater area past the bridge you may encounter a voice telling you to leave. Obey if you aren't at a high level because this would be Hades, and hes quite tough. Protect yourself from confusion and poison and I find a good group would be two strong attackers, vivi's black magic and a healer to be safe. Equip auto reflect on one character and have vivis unique ability reflectx2 equipped and bounce flare off the reflected character to deal 9999 damage with him.

I suggest every Fan of  turn based rpgs play this game, especially if you enjoy old school Final Fantasy because after the mediocre FF7 and even worse, FF8, 9 returns to the roots of and what made FF great returns once again!