Come on, you didn’t really think I would forget to make a post today, did you?
I beat Grabbed by the Ghoulies today (with a total play time of under 4 hours even) and then started Conker: Live and Reloaded. Two words to describe my experience so far: Loading. Screens. When Rare said they were going to do a direct port, they had no problems changing up a few things and then joking about it in the in-game dialogue, but that game has to load so many times it’s like they just left in the loads from the N64 version instead of bothering to optimize it. Aside from that, though, it’s pretty fun.
Nothing left to say except Happy New Year!!!
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In what I guess could be seen as a response to the question I raised yesterday, I beat Jade Empire this afternoon (yeah, I just now finished it…) and then decided to start Grabbed by the Ghoulies as a shorter, less intensive game before I decide which other game to play. It’s not a bad game (it is made by Rare after all), but I will admit that I don’t mind having waited for over 2 years after the game’s release to play it.
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After my comments about Advent Rising yesterday, I went review searching since this was one of the numerous games I preordered and never bothered to read what the big sites had to say about it. GameRankings.com came up with a 67.4% average for the game while GameStats.com came in slightly higher with a 7.0/10 Press Score. What surprised me though is that the Gamer Score on GameStats was an 8.3 (same as the IGN Reader Average) and the Gamespot reader score was 7.3 compared to the 5.7 that they gave it. Now, all of this is just opinion, but maybe if I gave it some more time, the issues wouldn’t seem as bad. So, now the decision is whether to start up Advent Rising again once I finish some of my current games or keep it off to the side like it is now and maybe come back to it later on.
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$1169. Yep, that’s the total amount of money I got from my birthday and Christmas combined. This makes the 4th year in a row that I’ve received over $1000 between my birthday and Christmas. I figure this will either get invested or just be deposited with my mom and be used to fund large purchases I want to make later on in the year (iPod with video, anyone?).
I want to like Advent Rising as a game, especially now that I’ve become so engrossed in the Ender series. I finished Ender’s Shadow on the way up to Hot Springs on Christmas Day, and while I was there I got Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets. So far I’ve loved everything about the books, so since Card (the author) is the one responsible for the story of AR, I think I would enjoy it also if the game just wasn’t so bad.
This leads into a thought I have about the way the game industry works now: who is it within the company that’s responsible for allowing games to be released that obviously aren’t at the highest possible quality? Movie games I can understand (although not tolerate) because of the desire to release the two simultaneously, but wouldn’t companies rather delay the game by one or two months to clean up the most obvious bugs and glitches in order to increase the overall quality of the game (and therefore potentially sales)? Games that didn’t do too well like Psychonauts that were awesome and just suffered at the hands of not being marketed well unfortunately can’t be changed this way, but I think that someone should focus on creating a studio that takes the potentially great games marred by a few bugs (but serious, as in the case of AR) and finishes that last amount of work to release a better product. Yeah, there are probably infinite legal issues with this not to mention that it probably wouldn’t financially be worth it, but when all a game needs is a little more time to clean it up, you can’t help but wonder “what if”.
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Yes, today is my birthday, but do I feel any older? Nope, not really. I do, however, have a picture to go along with this post of something that one of my friends gave me 2 years ago:
Cydney made me that card when we were in Coach Richardson’s class together, and I found it while I was doing the massive cleaning of my room a week or two ago. So, there you go, Now it’s off to a day that won’t be different from any other except for the fact that people will give me more stuff than usual :)
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With the parade on this past Saturday, I think I might be done with football related events now (with the exception of the banquet in January that we’ve already established I’m most likely not going to). I don’t get a break from sports for long though with baseball out at UTD starting soon after I go back to school. Probably the only year I’ll do this, but I could always end up changing my mind.
For my game class next semester, one of the assigned books was Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I decided to get a jump on it by starting it over the break, but enjoyed it so much that I finished it last night and ordered the parallel story, Ender’s Shadow, off of Amazon earlier today. Definitely one of my favorite books that I’ve ever read, and once the movie ends up getting made, I’ll absolutely be going to see it.
In other minor news, I beat Kirby’s Canvas Curse earlier today, and, oh yeah, it’s my birthday tomorrow :).
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So yesterday after we had the picture taken, the ring people were there to size us for our state rings. As expected, I wasn’t on the pre-printed list, but they didn’t seem to have any problems about just writing my name in. No idea what the timeframe will be for getting them, but when they do arrive it’s going to be expensive. Apparently silver is $299 (that’s what I got) and gold is $599. Hey, no one ever said winning a state championship would be cheap.
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I believe the correct term for today was “complete domination”. If you don’t agree, then please let me know what a 59-0 victory in the state finals is while holding your opponent to only 21 (yes, that’s right) total yards. Some additional facts about today:
- Our first shutout of the season
- Biggest blowout ever in a UIL 11-man state final game
- 4th game of the season we’ve scored 59 points in (never been able to break the magical 60 though…)
- Held Marshall to 21 total yards and only 2 first downs
- First ever HP team to have an undefeated, untied season (and not to mention first to win 15 games)
Band of Brothers, you deserve it.
Highland Park Scots: Class 4A Division I State Champions!!!
P.S. And to answer that question from a few weeks ago, yes, I will be getting a ring :)
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Just 1 day away…. Anyway, I found out this morning that people who wish to watch or listen to our game will have no less than 5 ways to do so, and because everyone comes to my blog for this sort of info (shut up, they do!!), I figured it was the right thing to do to post it here:
Broadcast Television: KDFI 27 (Charter Cable channel 19, coverage starts at 3:00)
Radio: ESPN 103.3 FM (pre-game coverage begins at 2:00)
Internet TV Stream: http://www.hpisd.org (HP STATE FOOTBALL GAME link at the top, coverage will match KDFI 27)
Internet Radio Streams: http://www.sportsjuice.com (High bandwidth, ESPN 103.3 coverage) or http://www.hpisd.org (Low bandwidth, KDFI 27 coverage)
With all those options, no one has any reason not to watch or hear the game in some form. That’s right, no one.
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Except for, oh yeah, “We’re going to State!!!”. For the first time in 48 years, HP has finally made it to the State finals, and along with that, this is our first team to ever win 14 games in a season. This accomplishment didn’t come easy though.
Starting with the final play of the 3rd quarter when Stephenville scored a touchdown to make it 34-31, this game became the ultimate nail-biter. With just over 8 minutes they scored once again to give them the lead (the first time this year we’ve been trailing in the 4th) 34-38. We then got down to around the 30 or so, and one of our players fumbled the ball almost directly into one of their defenders with only about 4 minutes remaining. The first play or two they stuck with the safe run, but they then tried a short pass right up the middle which we amazingly intercepted on a diving catch. That then set up our touchdown with only 37.7 seconds left, and being unable to get down the field to attempt a field goal, we won 41-38.
We won’t be sure of the time or place until sometime this next week, but my “sources” inform me that it will almost definitely be on Saturday and that we’ll likely have to travel (i.e. no Texas Stadium). Whether that equates to a Friday departure and spending the night somewhere or just leaving and returning on Saturday, I’m not sure yet. But I do know one thing for sure: next weekend is going to be amazing. :)
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