14 Days

So I'm a huge gamer, but lately I've been falling behind with gaming news and everything.  Part of that is due to the fact that I was in Europe for a month, and didn't have as much access to computers as I do at home, and part of that is due to a ton of stuff changing in my life.  I'm starting school again this fall and I just got a new job.  Well anyway I'm trying to catch up again, and I'm finding so much stuff that I did not know.

First off I just heard about the whole Jason West and Vincent Zampella vs Activision Blizzard case going on.  I don't know why I'm just hearing about it because it's been going on for awhile, although I guess I was also pretty late about hearing the Halo 4 release date which is my absolute favorite game series.  Well anyway for anyone who hasn't heard about this trial, here's a little summary.  Activision fired West and Zampella (former co-founders of Infinity Ward) just before the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, also just before they would have had to pay West and Zampella huge bonuses for the game release.  Well obviously West and Zampella are pissed, as I would be too, so they are going to court suing Activision Blizzard.  Makes me think of a lot of reasons I left working at Target (screw you corporate).  It will be interesting to hear how all of this pans out, and I hope they win (West and Zampella).

Well now to the actual point of this post, aka the title.  Fortnite, a new game that Epic had anounced last year, is now only going to be a PC exclusive.  Again I'm a little late on this news, but I only just found out about this.  I'm a little disappointed in this as I am not a PC gamer.  I have nothing against PCs, I just don't have enough money to buy or build a good enough computer to play the games.  At the moment I am using a netbook that I bought for $180, and it really is not at all good enough to play anything.  It can play games like Diablo 2, and Age of Empires 2, but nothing newer than that pretty much, and even those games have a hard time sometimes.  Well anyway, I'm a huge fan of Epic Games.  I have all of the Gears of War games, and every one of their Unreal series.  I've been playing Unreal Tournament since I started gaming pretty much.  In my opinion they are one of the best developers out there, with Bungie (slash 343), and People Can Fly.  Well this news is a bummer...  We'll see when I'll be able to play it.

For those of you reading this that are PC gamers the game still does look pretty amazing.  It's going to be the first game that show off Epic's new Unreal 4 gaming engine.  The game itself is going to be a survival/construction style of game, a lot like Minecraft or Terraria, but different.  From screenshots and the announcement trailer the game looks somewhat like Borderlands in its cartoony style of art.  In the game you will be put out in the world to collect whatever supplies you can to build a fortification for yourself to guard yourself from enemies when the dark rises.  Not like in Minecraft where you are digging dirt and trees and whatnot, but finding boxes, signs, anything in the world that can be shoved together to make a wall.  As you encounter more enemies you will have to always be upgrading your fortification to survive.  The game pulls at your creativity for you to build whatever type of building you like, could be a tiny shack, or if you wanted you could try building something bigger that actually has rooms.  But beware once the night falls, you better be inside.  Check out the trailer here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE2TTakfGjk

Well anyway.  Get out there everyone and play a video game.  And for all of you "CoD gamers", go try something new, there's a ton of awesome games out there. (Yeah I know if any one of them reads this they will be super pissed at me, but really that's just super awesome because then that means people are actually reading this.  Sweet!)

-- Josh

Elite

Here is another one of my drawings.  This one is an Elite from Halo.

The Best Worst Snipers Ever

I climb over the rubble up to the window to find the perfect shot.  I pull out my binoculars and scan the area.  I see two enemies walking their route.  I whisper to my partner; "Two enemies, I'll take the closer, you take the farther one.  Wait for the thunder to cover the shots."  But before I can pull out my rifle I hear a shot, and see both enemies fall to the ground.  Two-in-one shot.  Then the alarms sound and enemies swarm out of the surrounding buildings.     "Well.. that worked well."

So I bought Sniper Elite V2 this week and have been playing it a lot.  The game is awesome!  Well I also convinced my friend to buy it and we played through the missions in co-op.  The whole point of the game is to be stealthy and be careful about your shots.  Well... we never really did that. :P  The story above was just one of the situations we ran into our playthrough, but I was actually the one that made the sudden shot.  It was almost fun just running in guns blazing with a sniper rifle, maybe because that gun is not a short range weapon, so it made it interesting.  We still did take our time sometimes, but usually it was just a mad rush to see who could get the most kills.

As for the actual game, as I said it's awesome!!  This game has to be the best sniper game out there.  Granted there aren't really that many out there, but this one is just amazing.  It's realistic enough to make you feel like a real sniper, but it also has enough "fun" in it so that you don't get bored.  The game takes place in the end of WWII, during the fight for Berlin.  You play as the same character as the first Sniper Elite that was released for the PC in 2005, but Rebellion Developments said that the game isn't really a sequel but more of a reboot.  Just like in the original the game is about stealthily getting to objectives and picking off enemies with a number of different weapons from sniper rifles to land mines.  That being said if you get cornered it isn't impossible to survive, as you also carry a pistol and a machine gun.  The sniping mechanics in the game can be changed from having no ballistics, or by having fully realistic ballistics where your bullets are affected by both gravity and wind.  All in all, this is the perfect game for someone who just wants to play it for the storyline, or for sniper enthusiasts who want to have all of the challenges at your hand.

-- Josh

Umm.... What?

So one thing you should know about me is I love sniper games.  I love sniper movies, I love sniper books, I don't know why but I just love snipers.  Well there aren't very many sniper games out there, from what I can think of you have Sniper: Ghost Warrior, and Sniper Elite.  I have Ghost Warrior so I've been watching all of the news on Ghost Warrior 2, waiting for that to come out.  Super excited about that.  But that's not the point of this post.  Sniper Elite on the other hand is a little bit different story.  It was made in 2005, and its for the PC.  I was able to pick it up on Steam for super cheap so I've been trying to play it.  I have a problem when it comes to playing older games.  I can't seem to get past the graphics and nuances of the game to truly enjoy it.  So I was all bummed because everyone online was saying this was the best sniper game out there.  Well a couple months ago I stumbled on this trailer,  Sniper Elite V2.  It is a complete reboot of Sniper Elite, better graphics, better mechanics, and it's on console too! (which I completely prefer over PC)  So I've been watching gameplay videos, getting super excited about it.  And then 2 days ago I found out it comes out this week.  Even better!  The odd thing about it is nobody knows about this game.  I was going on and on about it at work yesterday and not one person had heard of this game.  I guess just somewhere the game got lost in advertisements.  I even looked if we were going to carry it when it comes out, and yes I found the label.  But it was never in the Ad, there isn't any record of it coming out at all.  That just confuses me a little.  Although at the same time I really don't care because the game is going to be so epic!  If you haven't you should download the demo and try it out.

-- Josh

Close down the world!!

So I just found out that the Halo 4 release date has been revealed!!!  November 6, 2012

Enough said.

-- Josh

Wake up John!

Cars

Cars suck.  I mean.. I like them, they just suck.  I like driving them, I like looking at them, I just don't like fixing them.  I'm super lazy, and though I know how to fix my car by myself, I just don't.  For example, a year and a half ago I was driving home from a camping trip with my dad, and we were in my car.  Well he mentioned that he thought my front bearings might be going out since he could hear them, so I should probably change them sometime.  Nine months later I finally did, and when I pulled the old bearings out they just fell apart.  I'm the procrastinator of procrastinators when it comes to fixing my car.  I drive a 1997 Saturn SL2, and I love it.  I also love the fact that they just don't die, ever.  Everyone is surprised that thing is still running.  I've run it almost completely dry on oil once, I've driven on shot bearing for more than a half a year (as I already mentioned) and currently I need to replace my CV half shaft, which I've known about for maybe about 5 months, I don't know when I'm going to do that.  We'll see when that becomes a priority, I like putting my money in just so many other things than my car.  I'm kind of laughing right now because if there are any mechanics or true car people reading this right now I'm sure you're all cringing from this post.  Yeah I know, I neglect my car.  Good thing I drive a Saturn. :P

-- Josh

Grunt #2

Oops, I completely forgot about doing this since my weekend was pretty busy and I wasn't really home for most of it.  ... So I'm going to have to just post another picture because I don't have a post planned out.  Here is another variant of a Grunt from Halo that I drew.

Grunt #1

Here's another drawing I did a couple days ago. You've already seen the Hunter I drew awhile back and I decided I want to draw all of the Halo characters because I have an idea for a comic strip, and obviously I need to know how to draw the creatures for that. So slowly you will see all of the ones I've drawn. And here is one of the Grunts. Enjoy.

 -- CK

Photography

Photography is a hard hobby. Not in the sense of going out and taking pictures or of printing them or such. But in the fact that at least with me I have all of these images in my mind of what I want to capture with my camera. The problem of this is that the world doesn't work in the perfect photographical way. Things that sound like the perfect picture in your mind turn out to look horrible. Example being like if you were imagining taking a picture of this cool looking tree sitting by a flowing river with the sun shining behind it. Well that sounds perfect so you go for it. But when you get there and take the picture all of a sudden it doesn't look so perfect. The sun's reflection is too bright so the tree actually looks like a telephone pole being eaten by a gorilla. You get my drift. Well.. maybe not, that analogy might have failed. Oh well. I understood it and that's good enough for me. But back to what I was saying. Photography, while it can be really rewarding when you do get that perfect shot, can also be insanely frustrating when it seems like none of your pictures are turning out. I myself do have about 10-15 pictures I can call pretty awesome, but out of about the 5,000 pictures I've taken that doesn't seem as impressive, at least to me. But out of those few pictures I have, when I got some ribbons at the county fair for 3 of them, it made it that much better.

... I have no idea if I wandered there, if I did I do apologize, just bear with me. Oh and you may of noticed my profile did change to my real name. I just linked to Google+ and I decided that there really wasn't any more point to hide my identity. So hi, I'm Josh Symalla.

-- CK

Hip Hop Violinist

So I was talking to a friend today and she sent me a link to this YouTube video of a violinist named Lindsey Stirling. She calls herself a Hip Hop Violinist, and in the video she was playing three different parts of a cover she wrote of Jennifer Lopez's "On the Floor". It was amazing!! I also checked out all of her other pieces and my personal favorites are "Transcendence" and "Shadows". Also for any video game fans out there, she also has a really good "Zelda Medley" duet. Listening to her pieces got me to finally pull out my violin again and start playing it again. I was surprised home much I still remember of the pieces I used to play. I'm thinking of ordering her sheet music and learn to play them because of how cool they are. I think everyone should check out her songs, again I'm going to say, they are amazing!

-- CK