Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You

Happy Birthday Dear Tetris! Happy Birthday to You!!!

I started playing Tetris on the classic Game boy during the long family road trips on our vacations. My brothers and I used to share one Game boy and took turns playing it in the backseat of the car. I remember how amazed my older brother would get when I was able to get farther than any of them. Level 8 was fast but it wasn’t so hard. And damn was that game addictive.

When Tetris DS came out for the DS a few years ago, I became addicted to Tetris again and started playing online with friends and occasionally against some really tough Japanese opponents. I was still pretty good at the game and even entered a tetris tourney at Penny Arcade Expo(PAX) one year. I made it all the way to the second to last round but was eliminated by a fellow Canadian. That was definitely a fun experience.

I don’t use my DS wi-fi to play games online anymore but that doesn’t mean I have stopped playing Tetris. I still play every so often. Most recently I played Tetris against a friend who only wanted to play against me if I had a handicap. He did pretty well (with my handicap that varied from 2-4) and even won a few times! I blame the headache I had at that time for ruining my concentration. Heh

Tetris is a game anyone can pick up and get into. It’s a puzzle game so it may be easy to start but a little more challenging to get the hang of it. But its a great way to pass the time if you need to wait somewhere, during long trips or even if just during a break. It has remained one of those games everyone can enjoy. From Girls to Guys, Tetris, has been making people addicted for the last 25 years. And more and more I hear of girls who are really skilled at it. <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYDeW0xkCzs”>Utada Hikaru</a>, a popular Japanese pop artist, is one such girl. She had a Tetris competition in Japan a few years ago to promote Tetris DS.

At work the other day, my coworkers were talking about how good they were at Tetris. One girl used to play with her sister when she was 11 and says she is the best at that game, the other guy claims he is the Tetris Champ. We plan to have a tetris tourney at work to settle this. Whether you enjoy playing Tetris alone or with friends, You will enjoy playing it (period).

Happy 25th Birthday to a dear friend. Thank you for all the addictive fun you have given us all these years!!!

PS- I’m selling a Tetris Tee on Ebay.

I’m hoping to sell some kewl things on Ebay

Let’s hope it’s for more than $0.99

Ah Ebay. Years ago, I remember my brother buying and selling a whole bunch of really neat one of kind items from Ebay. I never really sold anything on my own, always just observed his auctions, but sometimes strategically bidding for him last minute. That was about as involved I was with Ebay.

I signed up for my own account in 2007, but it wasn’t until just recently that I decided to start selling some stuff (random stuff mostly) on Ebay.

Check out the items currently for sale:

TOKIDOKI Tee
Tetris Tee
Hello Kitty X BALZAC Cell phone Charm
Kubrick Alien Series 2 Dallas & Chestburster

Classic PC Edutainment: Oregon Trail!

Finding time for games…

When a co-worker asked me the other day what games I’m playing, I had to stop and think about it. In the last little while, I have neglected my gaming time because of the beautiful sunny weather we’ve been having. But I did tell him about the last few games I was playing which included “Call of Duty 4″ and “GTA” on my 360 and “Zelda: Phantom Hourglass” on my DS.

I’ve always been more of a console gamer than a pc gamer. There was a time when I would play games on the PC but that was limited to FPS games or Online games like Star Trek: Armada. But when I think back to when I first became introduced to the PC, back in elementary school, I vaguely remember playing and really enjoying the game Oregon Trail.

An Educational Software Classic: Oregon Trail!

I remember going to the Computer Lab and doing our typing exercises. Each of my classmates sitting at their own computers busy doing typing exercises. The teacher would allow us to play some games if we finished our work early and there was still time in the lab.

Oregon Trail was one of the games they let us play. Designed to teach school children about the realities of 19th century pioneer life on the trail, in Oregon Trail, the player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding his party of settlers from Missouri to Oregon along the “Oregon trail”.

I could never get very far in Oregon Trail because there would always be some illness that one of the people traveling on my wagon contracted, which eventually killed them off. Along with the NES, Oregon Trail was one of the first times I was introduced to games. Such a classic!

Going Boldly

Debuggirl’s log – Stardate today

When I first attended San Diego Comic-Con 2006 with my older bro, I remember us scrambling to grab the free Star Trek Posters. Another Star Trek movie but not much else was mentioned other than it was set in the past. I remember wondering and worrying whether the movie would disappoint us.

My bros and I have been fans of Star Trek since we were younger. Watching Star Trek: TOS on our old tv in our first apartment and then moving to Star Trek: TNG and DS9. We did watch Voyager and Enterprise as well, but I have to say TNG and DS9 were my favorites and Voyager and Enterprise had a few good episodes but not much else.

I have been looking forward to the new Star Trek movie since I started collecting the posters back in ‘06. I was a bit skeptical at first but after watching it last Thursday, much to my delight I really enjoyed it! Reviews on Star Trek have been high and it seems like everyone’s talking about this movie and their favorite parts. Standing in line for breakfast at Tim Horton’s yesterday morning I hear them talking about Sulu mentioning his combat training was fencing hahaha.

The Star Trek for those who have never seen Star Trek will definitely appeal to the fans as well. Inside jokes and an great cast to portray their ‘younger selves’. It was fantastic. I must see it again..and I will. I wish my older bro were here to see it. I’m sure he would have loved it too.

GDC Canada

GDC Canada (May 12-13)

Thanks to what some like to refer to as the economic ‘recession’ affecting the nation and the world,  we hear about more layoffs than new jobs these days. It doesn’t seem to matter which industry you work in, companies cut costs by cutting jobs. Although entertainment, like video game sales and movies are doing well, the Game industry hasn’t been immune to these job cuts.Vancouver’s game industry has seen its share of layoffs. With studio closures and company cut backs in the last few months people move to other cities or even to the states to find work.

GDC Canada is happening next month, in less than 2 weeks, and a question that’s come up is whether it’s even worth it. GDC Canada replaces what was known as VIGS or the Vancouver International Game Submit. But that in itself was a pretty small conference. So it remains to be seen how big this one will be. With so many people still looking for work, GDC Canada is offering complimentary passes to those unemployed individuals who would like to attend the conference. They have the extra time to spare so why not use it to look for that next opportunity, network and listen in on some sessions. It’s a great offer so if this applies to you, be sure to take advantage of it!

13 year olds with too much power?

His demands for video games include punches…

Where’s GTA?!

A friend of mine is lucky (and sometimes unlucky, depending on how you look at it) to have a younger brother. They are 14 or so years apart and she practically raised him doing her best to ensure he had a great childhood complete with visits to the beach, park, aquarium, space centre and of course different video games whenever he wanted. But like all teenage boys, ‘raising them’ isn’t enough to keep them from tantrums or demands.

In his first year in High school, he’s doing quite well. He gets good grades and has many friends but it’s High School, not always a ‘fun experience’. He spends a lot of his free time on Xbox Live and playing his Xbox 360 games to ‘escape’ from stress of school.

The other day my friend asked to borrow my copy of Grand Theft Auto 4. I already knew it wasn’t for her as she’s not much of a gamer. She said her brother has been asking her to rent it for him but she owes fees at the video rental store and didn’t want to spend money on clearing them yet. She told him she would try to borrow it from a friend but my copy is already being lent out so I wasn’t able to help her out.

Later during the week she told me her brother gave her a really hard time when she neglected to find a copy of the game for him. He even punched her arm because she had disappointed him by not following through with his request. Now, that’s pushing it.

Spoiled? Uh-huh.

Grand Theft Auto isn’t really a game a 13 year old boy should be playing, especially if it’s a 13 year old boy who doesn’t have a problem with hitting to get his way. I advised her not to get him the game. She can’t let him force her to do things for him by hitting her and swearing. GTA wouldn’t exactly be a good influence on him either. But then, maybe he can take out his rages in the virtual world instead of the real one.

The next time I saw my friend she said he now wanted Resident Evil 5…oh and he is still waiting for her to get GTA 4.

Buy, Sell, Store.

Off to Market I Go…

Whether gold, credits, or rupees, some form of currency is necessary to have in order to shop for items in a different games. It’s not limited to a specific genre anymore either. In the Sci-Fi thriller/adventure(?) game, Dead Space, I was so used to running out of everything. Needing to find credits somewhere, even selling some weapons and buying them back later, to do it was frustrating.

After playing through the game, repeat visits to the ‘Store’ to purchase health items, ammo etc. became second nature. Maybe that aspect of the game just contributed to the reason why buying similar items in other games such as the one I’m currently playing, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, is frustrating the heck out of me. I’m just tired of always needing to buy things.

Gold in Castlevania comes from destroying inanimate objects like torches or candles and killing enemies.

Who knew Torches would be so useful…

Now, I’ve already played through a few stages and I rarely find gold. Hearts seem to be more common. So when I was at the boss stage, running extremely low on health, I cursed the price of a slab of meat and that of a potion. If only I had enough gold to stock up on both items…Arggh…

I decided to rack up some gold the best way I knew how, going back and forth to one torch and collecting the coins that way. I did this more than a hundred times and ended up with more than enough gold to buy meatx9 and potionx8. It was perfect. If only more areas offered gold coins. I don’t want to always have to resort to this technique(?) to be able to afford items at the item shop.

I guess I could use some kind of cheat? But where’s the fun in that? I always feel guilty using codes unless I’m reeally reeeeaaally stuck.

Another Update

My Xbox was sent back to me last week, which means I am now through with borrowing a console and using others’ 360s with my HD. I was impressed with how quickly it got sent back to me too. That was a minimal disturbance to my gaming, and not nightmarish at all compared to many of the stories I’ve heard. I also received a 1 month gold membership but that was probably to replace the 1 month I had lost while it was being repaired. Now back to more gaming…

Dead Space is done…

…and so is my 360…

Nyes! I can officially scratch Dead Space off of my list of ‘games to beat’!
I was waiting to beat the game before I sent my 360 console in for repair, but when it red-ringed on me the other day, I didn’t hesitate to put in the repair request. Now I won’t have to worry about the cost of my repair, but that also means I’m out of a system to play (and beat games) on. Instead of purchasing the arcade version when my 360 died on me, I opted to just use someone else’s 360 with my HD to play AND finish Dead Space. Simple enough, as I know more than a few people with 360s.

Dead Spaced out

Dead Space was given to me as an Xmas present, and I started playing it while on Xmas vacation. My cousin and I had just finished a Gears of War 2 horde session and were about to call it a night when we decided to pop the game in just to see the intro. That eerie “twinkle twinkle little star” rendition and the bloody cut scenes..creepy…I have no idea why we kept playing. I got to a part about 5-10min into the game when the creatures jumped up from ‘playing dead’ and I jumped too. That definitely freaked us out and we decided I’d have to continue playing the game in the morning. I wouldn’t want to see those things in my nightmares.

Every time someone asked me what the game was about, I’d say it reminded me a little of that movie ‘Event Horizon’ because at the start they were going to investigate a spaceship that they had lost contact with. With its elements of horror, the interesting story, and unique features ( like suit upgrades, stasis, Zero-G areas) Dead Space was a pretty good game overall but not without a few flaws.

The ability to upgrade your weapons and suit was a great feature of the game. Giving the player a choice for which weapon to buy and upgrade meant that every person’s experience would be different. My favorite was the Line gun, especially after a few power nodes. But I constantly seemed to run out of ammo. This was terrible when I was out of credits and far from the store. Sure you could hit the enemies with your fist, but that movement was a little slow for the fast moving creatures, and didn’t work well when you were being surrounded.

Using stasis to freeze or slow them down momentarily would help, but if your stasis was empty, you were on your own. But you couldn’t sell the power nodes for credits and stasis refill was a rare find after killing enemies, so you had to buy the refill.

Nearing the end of the game, there weren’t any new enemies and the areas were similar to those encountered at the beginning. At that point, I felt that the game started getting redundant and I was slowly losing interest. You knew what to expect from the enemies and I was just plowing through each level to get to the end.

*SPOILER* There was that cool tentacle monster at the end but you couldn’t skip the cutscene or any of the cutscenes in the game and that was a little frustrating.

Isaac and his infamous helmet finally came off in the end. The game wasn’t too hard to finish, things that made it easier was pressing down on the control stick showed you the path to follow and when you died, you didn’t always have to start from your save point, which saved a lot of time. *END SPOILER*

I did enjoy playing through the game, however, this sci-fi/horror genre was definitely to my liking even if it became a little too repetitive for me. Now on to the next game to finish….

Isaac! There IS a human under that infamous suit!

Another Update..

My 360 shipment box finally arrived today. It had to be lightest package I have ever received!
I opened it to find some foam, plastic and packaging instructions. Packing up my 360 was too easy!
Hope it has a safe trip and gets back to me soon!! I miss it already!

It’s Not My Fault That My Xbox 360 Likes To Eat Discs….

…or that it freezes at the worst possible times!

Frustrating, annoying, and a total pain in the arse, my Xbox 360 has always been prone to errors. I clearly remember errors first surfacing back when I was playing Gears of War 1. I would constantly get that annoying ‘disc unreadable’ error whenever I tried to continue from a certain checkpoint online. My 360 just loves to eat discs, and it doesn’t matter what way the system is positioned either, it still happens. But I couldn’t part with my 360 then and it’s really hard for me to part with it now…

Why? Well, you see, with some extra time on my hands for gaming, it would really suck if I didn’t have a console to play. Sure, I’d still have my Wii (but when was the last time I’ve played that) and my DS, but I need my Xbox 360 around so I can reach my goals of beating all those games on my list (Well, except for the DS game Phantom Hourglass, of course).

Recently, my 360 has managed to annoy me enough that I may just have to part with it. The other night, while I was playing Dead Space (because Dead Space is really meant to be played at night so the screams of the creatures when they jump out at you also make you jump out of your skin), my 360 froze and displayed a bunch of blue vertical lines on screen.

There wasn’t a red ring problem at all. I just remember hearing the disc stop spinning and not even the controller was responding. So I decided to just try it again in the morning.

The next day, I was savoring the feeling of satisfaction of killing an enemy by test firing the shuttle engines at the precise moment, before he was able to regenerate. It was so great to finally see him burn up in the flames hehe..until I hear the disc stop spinning and see the blue vertical lines again. OMG! I wanted to throw the controller right at the screen. My 360 definitely hates me. Or, from what I’ve read online, the blue lines are the result of overheating. I’ve made sure that my 360 has adequate ventilation to prevent it from overheating but the error persists.

I just want to keep the system long enough to beat Dead Space (2 more chapters left) and then I will send it in for repair. I checked online and someone posted that for this same error, he paid $139 USD for his repair. I’m hoping it will be the same price for me. Considering that it has the disc problem as well as the hardware issue..it may cost a little more. A new Xbox 360 is around $300..and I, unfortunately, can’t afford it right now.

Besides the cost for the repair, another concern I have is how long I’d be without the system. I’ve heard the stories of long lost consoles, 360s taking months to be returned, and it’s not something I’m looking forward to. For those of you who have had to send your 360s in, do you remember how long it took to be returned?

A day at the museum.

Interactive, Educational and Fun!

On my recent mini-vacation, I visited the California Academy of Sciences museum on the grounds of the Golden Gate Park.

For those of you who have never been, there are actually a number of attractions in this area including the Botanical Gardens and a Japanese Tea Garden so you can easily make a day out of a trip here. We were about to visit the Gardens as well but it started to rain

The museum featured exhibits such as the “Rainforests of the World” where you enter a ‘green house like bubble’ and proceed from Rainforest floor up the different levels of the forest. It was funny to think that here we were in the Rainforest but everyone was wearing their jackets! Eventually it became really warm in there and I wished I didn’t have my bulky jacket to carry.

Little birds and butterflies were free to fly around here. I tried to snap some photos of the lil ones during flight but they were way too fast. I did manage to get a photo of a butterfly when it landed though. Beautiful! We weren’t sure how much of the lush green forest we were surrounded with was plastic and how much of it was real. There were these two little poison dart frogs, that I later learned was plastic, that sat really high up on some leaves. Everyone, me included, took a few photos of these..but no one realized that the frogs weren’t even moving..haha

Another pretty cool exhibit was the Philippine Coral. My aunt thinks they stole the coral without permission, but I’m not sure if that’s true. There were a great deal of tropical fish swimming among the coral! It made me wish I was snorkeling with them!

What I really liked most about the California Academy of Sciences was the way the museum’s exhibits were set-up. There was an interactive section with insects, and most of the exhibits were next to each other, so you didn’t have to walk far to find something else interesting to look at.

On the roof of the museum, what they refer to as  ‘the living roof’, there is a garden that will grow strawberries among other vegetation. That was a pretty unique sight.

There was a few things I didn’t like about the museum, such as the lack of space for the Penguins in the “Africa” exhibit. The area, which smelled musty, was filled with stuffed African animals, taxidermy galore. I also thought the snack area lacked tables and chairs. A number of people just gave up trying to find seats and sat on the ground. The eating area was spacious enough so I don’t see why they couldn’t add a few more tables.

At $25 per ticket, my advice is to pack a snack for yourself to eat to save some money, get there early to avoid the lineups and to find a parking spot! The museum garage and surrounding parking areas get full early.

In need of sustenance and looking for a chocolate fix, after getting our ’seahorse’ stamp (in case we wanted to come back later on), we headed to Citizen Cake, a popular bakery with some delicious desserts.