Deus Ex

Right I started playing Deus Ex today. What a game. I’ve only been playing for a couple of hours but I’m already hooked. The story seems deep and interesting, the voice acting is very decent, the graphics are great, the gameplay is very nice. I like that it’s a mix between an FPS and an RPG. I’m getting a bit of both worlds. I don’t usually like FPSs, but I’m being stealthy, so I’m not really running and shooting. It’s more like slow progress and headshots or silent take downs. I’m not going to be able to play everyday but it’s nice to know that I can play this on my breaks. So now time to go back to work. Stay safe everyone. Love you bye.

Working and Playing

So I told you yesterday that I started downloading a bunch of free games from the PSN, they were a gift to say sorry for being hacked and being offline for over a month. Anyway, I have to say that even though I’ve moved to England almost three years ago, I’m still baffled at how fast the internet is here. I’m aware that my provider is one of the best ones in the country (O2), but it’s still amazing. I downloaded 4 games in 2.5 hours. That’s just insane. Anyway, I spent today playing and working. Work is going well, I kept taking breaks to play in order to keep going. I’m on a break now to write this and I will go back to work in a minute. Hopefully this chapter will be done soon so I can at least write one proper post a week (or maybe more) without feeling guilty that I’m wasting my time. Until then, stay safe. Love you bye.

Head in the Clouds

Right I almost forgot about my blog. It’s like my head is in the clouds, hence the title of the post (I am funny), although if I am honest my head wasn’t exactly in the clouds. In fact, my head has been in front of the screen trying to work all day. I took a bit of time off to talk to my mom on skype. Also, I took a bit of time playing a new game on my playstation. Well, I say new game, it’s actually been out for a while now I just never got the chance to play it. As I told you a few weeks ago I bought around 5 games all at once, and that’s one of them. I’ve only just started but I’m already loving it. I’ll definitely blog about it when I have the chance.

Anyway, I don’t really have much to say as I am quite late to make the deadline for this post and I’m eager to go back to work. I’m actually on a bit of a roll and I don’t want to mess it up by spending too much time on this post thinking about other stuff. I have another supervision next week and I have to send my supervisor something substantial by then. I’m still not there yet but I think I’m getting there. I just need to focus a little, which seems to be working right now. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep my focus going next week and be able to move forward with this thing. Anyway, I’ll see you all tomorrow hopefully. In the mean time stay safe. Love you bye.

While I Wait

Right, the Doctor Who Christmas special is going to start in half an hour. So I thought I can write this while I’m waiting. This is my first Christmas in England, and even though I’m by myself I’m really enjoying it. But anyway, this is all for tomorrow’s post. Today, I have to talk to you about yesterday and the cliff hanger I left you with. Well are you ready to hear the answers to all the questions I asked yesterday? Well though! They were there for comic effect. Yes I call it comedy. I know I’m the only one laughing but that’s because my sense of humour is so refined and superior. Face it, I’m just better than you in every single way. That’s right you, I’m talking to you. Not all my readers, just you there reading this post right now. I’m only joking I love you all. But I’m still not answering all your questions. As I explained, they were there for comic effect. And as I said as well, it’s funny whether you think it is or not, because I am better than you in every single way. Oh my god I seem to have locked myself within a weird viscous cycle, as a graffiti in an AUB bathroom. The whole graffiti read ‘Life is a viscous cycle’. So I’m going to to walk away from the viscous cycle and start writing about yesterday.

So I went to sleep on Thursday at 18:00 hoping to wake up on Friday morning all refreshed with my body clock reset, or at least beginning to be reset. However, while I did wake up on Friday, it was at 00:00. This was quite disturbing. I was very angry. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. I therefore decided to try it again by staying up as late as I could. This was quite an interesting turn of events. I decided to help myself by drinking copious amounts of tea and eat a bunch of chocolate in order to stay up as late as I could. Hence the weird post yesterday.

I spent most of the night playing Uncharted 2. I finished it on normal mode and then started replaying it on hard mode. I was trying to get all the secret treasures. It really is a very good game. I’m quite excited to play the third one when it comes out next year. It seems to be mainly set in the arabian peninsula, which is kind of home for me. Well I am an arab so I’m somehow forced to think it’s good. I hope it doesn’t turn into a weird kind of racist thing. It can do very easily, can’t it.

The rest of the day was spent with me watching some good stuff on tv and the internet. I also enjoyed listening to a bit of music. I’m very happy that I’m listening to music again. It’s been a while since I’ve just sat and listened to music, rather than have it in the background while I do stuff. Music is really a very good thing.

Anyway, that’s all from me. The Doctor is about to start so I’m going to leave you and enjoy the show. I love the Doctor. and Matt Smith is really very good in it. Oh and to answer the question I did sleep at 22:00 and I’ll tell you when I woke up and if my plan finally worked on tomorrow’s post. Have a happy Christmas everyone. I’ll see you tomorrow. Well not exactly see you, but we’ve been through this before haven’t we?

A Day of Sleep

So as I mentioned on Yesterday’s blog post I decided to try and sleep a lot on Wednesday, in order to stay up on Thursday, and hopefully wake up at a normal time on Friday, and thus reboot my body clock. Well everything went to plan on Wednesday. Now we have to hope that I can stay up all of Thursday and sleep at a decent time. The problem with spending Wednesday sleeping is that I don’t have much to write about. You see by being asleep all day, nothing has happened to me. Absolutely nothing. I am stuck not knowing what to write about. It’s a bit of a shame.

I can’t leave my post at 111 words so here’s me trying to fill up a post with absolute drivel and filler. The only thing I can think of is that I started playing Uncharted 2, I know that it’s been out for a year and a bit now, but I never got round to it. I really enjoyed the first one. It was an interesting game. In many ways it was more like an action film with some interactive bits in between all the cinematic scenes. I’m not complaining though. They did it very well. It worked and flowed very smoothly. The first one remains, for me, one of the best titles on PS3. It has enough to keep a hardcore gamer interested, while at the same time can entertain someone who’s new to gaming, or even someone who’s just watching someone else play.

The voice acting is fantastic and the script and writing is very good, even though all the clichés of action films are there. For example, you will hear ‘I’m too old for this shit’, or ‘what could possibly go wrong?’, or other choice overused conventions. However, the game gets away with it, because it doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s very humorous and is clearly not meant to be seen as a serious piece of writing. The sequel seems to do exactly the same thing, which is not a bad thing at all. Why change a formula that is so clearly working? Or to put it in cliché terms ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’

The first game revolved around Drake, the main character, exploring a tropical island in search of some treasure that his ancestor hid there. While being followed by bad guys, mainly Caribbean pirates, led by an evil English man. Again, this game wants to be a Hollywood film, and we all know that English men make for great evil characters. This new game involves Drake going all over the world following the trail left by Marco Polo, when 600 of his crew and 13 boats were lost. All the while being followed by some bad guys, mainly Caucasian mercenaries this time, being led by an evil eastern European ex-war criminal, the other great villain in Hollywood films. Although, there still is an evil British man, I say British and not English because I’m not really sure where in britain he’s supposed to come from.

I’m still at the beginning of the game, so I can’t tell you much more about it. The only thing that I have to add is that it seems to be just as good, if not slightly better than the first one. This is good news as it means that I can play the game so as not to sleep on Thursday. Anyway, I think that’s enough from me. I shall go and try to keep sleep away from me, as it is too early to sleep. Bye.

Almost Forgot Again

So I almost forgot to write this again. The main reason is that I don’t have much to say again. It’s been a very weird week. I have been stuck at home doing nothing. Well not exactly nothing. I have worked quite well today. But I’m in that weird phase of work where I’m not really writing, nor am I really reading. I’m basically compiling stuff in order to read and write next week. So I don’t have much to say about work.

I have discovered a free MMORPG. For those who don’t know MMORPG stands for massive multiplayer online role playing game. This one is quite fun very engrossing. It is simplistic in many ways, but I like that. There isn’t much of a a story to talk about. The game is called sacred season 2. Seasons play a role in it. And it is a very basic, evil power takes over nice land, you are a hero who will bring back peace to the world. Nothing special there. I am a winter hunter. Which means that I use bows and to be honest I’m not really sure what the winter bit does.

The game is basic in its gameplay as well. You get quests from villagers and go to a dungeon and grind your way through it. Quests are mainly about clearing dungeons, although some involve killing specific creatures or fetching some materials. It is repetitive, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The world isn’t massive, but it seems that it is expanding soon. I have been enjoying it.

Also, there is one mini-game which involves making phrases out of acronyms. It is one of the most fun bits of the game. However, you get points from people voting for you. This means that most people vote for things that sound funny, even if they don’t make any sense. I have come up with some very good ones, but like I said, most people will vote for funny sounding phrases rather than good ones. I am not bitter about this.

Anyway, I know it is another short post, but I need to get ready to sleep as my day tomorrow is very long. I need to get to uni early in order to complete my preparation for the classes in the afternoon. I really hope that my health holds tomorrow. I don’t want to have to stay home on Friday. I am missing the PGR room, I do a lot of good work there. So as I said, it is time for me to go. Hopefully, my full day tomorrow will provide material for my evening post.

Slow Day, Tennis, and God of War 3

So I had a very slow day. I woke up naturally with the sun rising up. And by naturally, I don’t mean it is natural for me to wake up with the sun, but that I woke up without any external stimuli. I thought fuck that I’m not getting out of bed this early, it’s Sunday for fuck’s sake. I actually said those words… out loud… to the universe… from my bed. Then I stayed in bed in a half sleep state until about 10:30 when the pain in my bladder forced me to get out of bed. I had a slow lazy morning and then went to tennis.

It was the first time I’ve been in three weeks. Actually I missed three sessions, so it was the first time in four weeks. I was a little rusty at first but by the end I was getting all my serves in and was having a lot of fun playing. I am looking forward to playing more tennis. I hope my health doesn’t get in the way, as it’s been for the past month. It was fun to move around and do something that requires physical energy expenditure. After tennis I went back home to see that while I enjoyed playing tennis my intestines didn’t. So I ended up staying home even though I had plans to see friends. I stayed home and did what I had to do, I played God of War 3. And I am ashamed to say, not really I’m very proud of it, I finished my first playthrough.

What follows is what I hope to be a spoiler free review of the game. I know some of the readers of this blog don’t know the story and haven’t played the first two (I’m talking about the ones who care not the ones who don’t. You know who you are!). So in an effort to not spoil their soon to come enjoyment of the series I will try not to spoil anything.

The first God of War came to the PS2 a few years ago (it’s this kind of accurate and thorough reporting that will no doubt get me a job as a newspaper editor). It took the world of gaming by storm. It is an action RPG that delivers on every level. It was epic and grandiose. The sets, the music, the story, everything set the game to be a classic. It was one of the first games, at least the first I’ve seen, to incorporate quick time events in the gameplay. In fact, almost everything was done by the player. Opening doors involved pressing buttons and doing things, rather than just pressing a button and watching the character do everything. It was very effective in immersing you in the game.

The gameplay in general was great. The combat was ruthless and, while it was possible to go a long way with button mashing, one had to master the combos and think about what button to press in order to win the game. The battles are huge and epic. The character Kratos is a great character. All in all, it was one of the best games ever made.

The thing is though, it was supposed to be the only god of war game. But sony felt they could make tons more money and so made a second one. Now the second one is a fantastic game as well. But it lacks the genius of the first one. It felt a little bit laboured, especially with the story. While the first one comes to a natural and fitting end, the second one, while having a great story, does seem to try too hard. But anyway, this is only a minor complaint. The second one was in many ways even more pretty than the first one. Also, it involved very minor changes to the gameplay, which was a good surprise. Sequels in games sometimes are ruined by designers breaking a system that works very well by introducing new gameplay mechanics.

Anyway, the third one starts where the second one ends. Literally, it begins at the moment the second one ends. And it is epic from the first second. Everything is beautiful, grand, and just eye popping smack you round the face pretty. Also, like all God of War games, it starts with an epic battle. That’s a trademark of the series. But this one, unlike the previous two, has so many of these epic battles in that it is dizzying at points. Clearly the fact that this game is on the PS3 shows. It has used the machine’s, if not full then damn near-full potential. I mean the other two games, being on the PS2, could not support so much stuff happening.

The bosses are wonderful and the puzzles are just, for lack of a better word, epic. I have to say some of the puzzles were proper crazy. They involve brain power, and crazy platforming, and some quick thinking. The final battle is everything you want it to be. The game ends in an expected way, though still satisfying. There is however, one loose end that I don’t understand properly. I hate to admit it, but I think they left it in in order to give themselves the possibility of making another one. The last scene of the game seems to indicate as much. I mean I’d be very happy to play another God of War, but I’m sick of this trend in games. Why can’t a game just end? Why do we always have to have an open ended ending.

Anyway, apart from that minor complaint, the game was fantastic. I highly recommend it. Although it is incredibly gory. The God of War series has always been gory, but this one takes it to new levels. Some of the finishing moves of the bosses are very hard to watch. In the end this game is my second favourite of the series. The first one still reigns supreme. Not for its graphics or anything like that, but because it was so original and its story was so well told.

WIP

So today was my WIP. I was looking forward to it, as I like presenting. I was a bit afraid of a few things though. First, my paper felt way too long. Second, it is a highly theoretical paper that involves a lot of math and very complicated philosophical concepts. I was hoping though that I had made them clear. The thing is, I think I’m able to clarify them in my chapter, which is about double the size of that paper, but I’m not sure they’re clear in such a short paper. But again, the paper felt too short to explain things properly, but too long to present. I finally decided to not worry about it too much and just go ahead and do it.

It turns out it wasn’t too long. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t short, but it wasn’t crazy. However, I had to stop reading every now and again and clarify a few points. I ended up going off script a fair amount of times. I ended up using things from my chapter in order to explain some of the complex points. I think that most of the people there got it. Although there were many bemused faces who could barely hide their boredom and complete non-understanding of it.

I think that I freaked out some of the new Postgrads. You see my paper was the first WIP, and it kind of set the mood for what to expect from a WIP. Also, a lot of faculty were here, which is good for me, but probably intimidating for the postgrads. I was happy to see so many of them took the time to attend my paper. It’s very flattering to think that they value my work and feel they can take time off to come and watch me talk about topology and differential relationships within a virtual structure of symbolic elements that differenciate themselves into real objects, while the subject is fractured and dissolved (by the way spelling nazis, you know who you are, I meant to write differnciate. It’s part of the argument).

I also got a few good questions and felt that I answered them well. Answering questions has always been one of my strong points. I like being put on the spot and having to think on my feet. Although, I like it only when I know my subject, and I’ve been working on this chapter for a very long time, so I know what it’s about. The questions went on for, more or less, about 15 minutes, I was hoping for more but time ran out. I am going to try to do another WIP this year. I have three chapters to write, so I might as well present one.

All in all I felt good about it, although I wished I could make my points a bit more clear. I am not naive though, I know that not everyone would get it. If someone has never done theory, or at least read some of the French philosophy of the 1960s and onwards, I realise that they would have trouble with my work. I also realise that in order for my work to make sense, I need to explain a lot of the terms I take for granted and expect people to understand. I have to assume my audience knows these terms, otherwise I would never get around to making my argument, but it still bothers me. I always felt that the point of academia is to explain the world and make it that little bit clearer. Each discipline does it differently, but we are all, in the end of the day, teachers. Teachers must explain things.

Now, Explaining doesn’t mean dumbing down or giving all the answers to the students/audience. I think that we need to lead people to ask the right questions and then do the work with them in order to get somewhere. Anyway, I don’t believe that there are Answers (again spelling nazis the capital A is meant to be there). I am a little bit suspicious of anyone who thinks they have understood something fully. All I can do is approach something from my perspective and hope to make it a little bit intelligible to others. I was able to do that with some people about some of the points I made today. Now I need to get to the others. My next WIP will hopefully do that.

After the WIP I gave myself the day off and went back home to a nice lunch and an afternoon/evening of playing God of War 3 and watching tv. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and had a blast. I will write a post about GOW3 at some point later. Suffice it to say though that it was worth the wait. This series has been at the forefront of the gaming world for a while now and the final chapter seems to have delivered again. I will try to ration my playing, in order to extend the joy of it. This week end will involve me working though, because I can’t, and to be honest don’t really want to, stop now. I am enjoying work again. I have to finish re-writing this chapter and then move on to the next. I think that I will be working on both of them at the same time. Anyway, tomorrow is another day, let’s see what it has in store for me.

Just Another Day

Time for another one of these. I don’t really have much to say today because nothing of note happened. I’ve worked all day then A came for a visit. We played a bit of FIFA and hung out. It was nice hanging out without feeling too guilty. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do that. Lately whenever I do something that’s not work related, which is all the time, I feel incredibly guilty about it, but not today. After he left I went to the gym.

The gym was a weird affair today. It was full, mainly with what looked like new students trying it out. I don’t know if they have a trial thing going on, but it was quite annoying. Everyone was looking at everyone else, which isn’t very good gym etiquette I would say. Also there was a spinning class going on and the lay out of the gym made it so that while I was rowing I was staring at women’s behinds while they were cycling. It just felt weird and annoying, because I didn’t want to stare but I couldn’t look anywhere else. I tried rowing with my eyes closed but that didn’t work. I couldn’t keep looking away, because it hurt my neck and it looked like I was looking at women on the treadmill and the cross machines. So I did the bare minimum and got out of there as soon as I could. It left me feeling quite unsatisfied and wanting for more.

After the gym I got back home, made myself some very nice stir fry for dinner. I used a lot of my veg box doing it, which is useful. I think I got my 5 a day between the stir fry and the smoothie that I drank while eating. I used red cabbage, which is definitely a very nice vegetable. I think it is quite an under rated vegetable. It has a unique taste. It seems to have naturally pickled taste, which is very nice. I also used spring onion, broccoli, and some other leafs that came with the veg box. All in all it was a satisfying and healthy meal. I love stir fries and should probably make more of them than I do right now.

Anyway, after that A came back and we hung out again. which is nice, but this time I did feel a little guilty as I have this thing to prepare for week one of classes and I still have a lot to do on it. Anyway, I should wake up early tomorrow and work on it for most of the day. Hopefully that’ll mean I finish it tomorrow, that way I can work on other stuff. I am looking forward to teaching but I’m also a little bit weary because last year it went so well. I am trying not to have high expectations, as this year’s students might not be as intelligent and engaged as last year’s. Well I’ll have to wait and see I guess.

That’s about it from me today I guess. I did fill more than I wanted. I think I’m getting better at noticing the minutia of life and writing about them. I’m hoping that by the end of the year I can write a whole entertaining or interesting post about something completely insignificant that I noticed or that happened to me. I think this blog is helping me at least develop my non-academic writing skills.

Resonance of Fate… Again

Right so I didn’t know what to write about today, so I thought I’l write a bit more about Resonance of Fate the game I’m playing at the moment. Well, what can I say, it’s a hardcore Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG). It is not for newbies. You need to be familiar with the genre and be willing to sink hours of pure grind in order to level up and face the next quest. So I thought I would break it down bit by bit.

First, the story. So far it is still developing. We don’t really know what’s happening. The story is told through a series of videos that don’t seem quite that related to each other yet. Some are flash backs, some are about two high ranking men, who you don’t really interact with. Your characters’ stories are told slowly and intermittently. The world seems to make sense in itself, and your place in it as well as others is assumed rather than explained. While that might seem alienating, it kind of makes sense. You live on this tower/machine. The rich people live higher up, and the poorer lower down. You are hunters who do odd jobs for the populace as well as the leaders known as cardinals. It is a post apocalyptic world. The earth died and time itself doesn’t make sense anymore. Now time is regulated by that tower/machine you live on. It also seems to be a pre-apocalyptic world, as there seems to be some kind of catastrophe waiting to happen. All of this is suggested rather than explicitly told. This gives the narrative structure of the game a strong quality I find. There is an air of foreboding and as you go on living your life you discover more and more what is happening.

Second, the character: You are in control of a party of three hunters. A man, a boy (who the man rescued it seems), and a girl (who the boy rescued when she tried to commit suicide). Their back stories aren’t clear as they are told in a series of unconnected flash backs. Nothing makes you care for them, yet you somehow do. Again I think that this is due to the very strong way in which the story is told. As you progress you learn more about them and the more you learn the less clear everything seems. At least that’s how it is at the point I got to in the game.

Third, Game mechanics. Well the game progresses through a chapter structure. Each chapter involves a major mission that you need to complete. Each chapter also offers a set of side missions that you might choose to undertake by visiting the hunter’s guild and taking the jobs. If you do not finish the side quests that are assigned to this chapter before you choose to finish it then you fail them. This means that in theory one can go through the game without doing any side quests. I say in theory because in practice one would need to do them as the rewards, both in cash and experience are invaluable if one is to finish the game as combat is unforgiving.

Combat mechanics is very interesting. Unlike classic JRPGs which involve swordplay and magic, this game is set in a steam punk world where people use guns. So you have your guns and that’s pretty much it. Combat is a sort of hybrid between realtime and turn based combat systems. It is a bit hard to get used to. However, once you do it is quite rewarding and demands a great amount of strategy. The combat is also unforgiving as you die a lot. there are two types of weapons, those that do scratch damage, which is surface damage that doesn’t involve loss of health points, and those that do direct damage, which involves loss of health points. The idea is to rack up scratch damage and then transform is into direct damage. There are also a whole bunch of special actions including tri-attacks which are a sequence where all three members of the party attack at once.

The most striking thing about the game is how unashamedly hardcore it is. This is not a game that holds you by the hand and feeds you information with a spoon. It is not for casual players or people who are new to the genre. That is not to say that newcomers might not enjoy it, but they need to work hard at it. There are no easy short cuts. The player needs to go through the game quite meticulously and grind for a long time. the levelling up system is very interesting as a character levels up as their gun levels up. You can also customise your guns, in fact you have to otherwise you won’t be able to beat the harder enemies.

One example of how hardcore the game actually is, is the arena. Like almost all JRPGs the game includes an arena where the player can go and take part in fights that will earn him/her money, fame, and a few goodies. However, the arena has 50 levels and each level involves 10 fights. You can actually progress from level to level after beating a given level 3 times. However, if you are to master the arena you need to do 500 fights. That is a staggering number. Again this is completely optional, or at least it seems to be so far, but any RPGer worth their name would want to finish everything in the game.

All in all, I am enjoying it a lot. I think that the game works very well. It toys with the conventions of the genre, while sticking to the basics. The world is beautiful, imaginative, and well presented. The story is told very well. The characters are interesting and loveable, or at least likeable. Finally, the game mechanics are tied well to the story. I, so far at least, highly recommend the game.