20/07/2015

Only one word: Masterpiece.

This was one of the most anticipated games since E3's conference last year and oh boy it's pretty damn good. I am not a big fan of The Witcher games but this one looks way too good and I really want to play it but I still can't :(. I am glad to own this edition of the game but I do have to complain (as usual...) because its size is enormous. There are too many huge editions coming out at once and this is becoming unbearable for any regular collector with a normal house. It's very hard to manage all the space available in a regular house to store so many big editions but companies simply keep'em coming because they know they sell like hot cakes. This will have to stop one day (I hope...)

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Everything is Amiibo

Now that I've lost even more readers by bashing Splatoon a tiny bit (but I still bought the game... -_-), it's time to talk about the newly released Yoshi game. I like this game, even though it's not exactly top stuff like Tropical Freeze. And the Amiibo that comes with it is pretty cute. So cute even my mother bought one for herself and took it out of its box. Taking an Amiibo out if its box is something so ordinary that I almost feel like a weirdo for keeping them all sealed. I am tempted to open them all though, who knows what's going to happen in the future... They certainly look nicer out of their boxes.

My only complaint is that Nintendo is taking this Amiibo business too far... way too far. It's enough of Amiibo already. In a little over half a year, there's about 60 or more already on sale or soon to be available. Most of them were a nightmare to get, not to mention those Skylanders Superchargers pack that are getting ready to hit stores soon enough. Damn Nintendo, please just take a break!

Fortunately, now there's enough stock for almost every Amiibo released so far - except Yarn Yoshis and Inkling Squids. ON YOUR FACE, SCALPERS! But on my face too because I've bought some doubles to trade in the future and now I don't need any -_-

Poor Yoshi was so badly framed in this picture that I will probably update it some time later...


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13/07/2015

Real Saturn Chronicles Episode 11: No time to play...

Unfortunately, there isn't much talk about videogames or my collection in this "episode", mostly because nothing special about that happened.

As I've mention before, I was quite scared of starting the second year in uni, in October 2002. Too many things happened that year. I worked even harder than before to the point my work rhythm started to decrease due to fatigue, meaning I would take more time to accomplish tasks that I could do in shorter periods without dragging them if I was well rested. It felt like a snowball... Instead of putting all the work aside once in a while just to get more sleep and rest when it was really needed, I would just keep working. Sleep privation and lack of rest can have some really nasty side effects on an individual's performance and psychology, but I was stupid enough to ignore that and I really felt the consequences a couple of years later. Working as hard as I could seemed the right thing to do at that time, but now I tremendously regret it. Some of my friends warned me about it but I was so stranded in my way of doing things that I didn't even consider other options, such as sacrificing a couple of classes or leaving some work unfinished. Today, I'm not even sure if all the work I've done was really necessary. I now consider that I spent too much time doing unnecessary things in order to guarantee I wouldn't fail any class. I even pushed my social life to second place. That is probably one of the biggest mistakes a person can do.

I think I was a coward in many ways. In fact, I still am a coward. I am a very stressed person. I'm usually afraid to fail when I have something new to do in my profession, even if it's something relatively simple.  I always start by worrying and asking my inner self: "Can I do this properly? Will it go okay? Am I up to this?". In the end, looking at all my past experience, there's usually not much to worry about, or at least not as much as I usually do. I start exploring my new tasks, I eventually become familiarized with them and that's when my confidence finally starts to grow. I usually finish the tasks just fine, even those that seemed harder or complex. Once they're done, I end up looking back and thinking: "After all, there was no need for so much worry and stress. Why was I so concerned about this?". But I still react the same way whenever something new pops up... I'm not the kind of proactive guy that knows immediately what to do when a new problem or situation appears. I first need to familiarize with the situation and slowly build my confidence until I can finally say "I can do this" or "I can fix this". Unlike many people who immediately have the confidence to do whatever they have to...

This major lack of confidence and low self esteem is the opposite of what companies usually look for when hiring new workers. When I am looking for current job requests, it really upsets me to see all those ads from companies searching for "confident, determined people with a high degree of commitment, preferably the best employee in the world with many outstanding characteristics and experience". Especially if the payment they offer is far bellow all those requirements...  I call all that stuff a major BS. I'm not the type of person to impress a boss by acting like a smart ass and only telling wonderful things about myself. I'm the type of modest person that would go to a job interview saying all my faults and problems in the first place, because that's what I feel more important to confess to someone expecting to hire me. However, that's exactly the type of person that no company would like to hire. Honesty and humility seems to mean zero in a job interview. All it counts is to impress the interviewer by convincing them that you are the perfect person to take the job, regardless of any other factor. It's funny, because I've met several confident people writing wonders about themselves in their CVs as if they were experts. However, after knowing some of them better or seeing how they work, I realize they're nothing that special and I don't consider myself to be inferior to them, professionally speaking. The only thing they have that I don't is self confidence, even if theirs is just a fake confidence or complete BS. Anyway, enough of this subject. I have a hard time explaining all these things in English...

While I was in the second year at the university, I still played a couple of games now and then, but I really can't remember which ones... There really isn't much I can tell about videogames or about my collection because I don't remember anything important that happened during that period. I know that I was just buying newly released PS2 games. Maybe Devil May Cry 2, Onimusha 2, GTA Vice City... I don't even know for sure. I guess I could just look at their release dates to find out exactly which ones I bought and played at that time, but I guess it's not worth the hassle. All I know is that I almost didn't play anything-

2002 was also the year when something happened between my parents. As if suffering from depression and having my mind all messed up thanks to the uni wasn't enough, things at home became pretty, pretty rough. They started to argue all the time. Sometimes, as I was finally trying to get some sleep after spending many hours awake, they decided to argue again. This happened many times and it was quite horrible. This sh!tty scenario lasted for about two years, by the time I was already a 4th year student, when my parents finally broke up and my father left home. Sometimes I would spend some nights at my friends' homes just so I could stay away from all that mess at home.

I started taking driving lessons on the summer break between 12th grade and the 1st year at the uni, in August 2000. I completely stopped taking those lessons for one entire year because I was too busy studying. I resumed those lessons on the following summer break between 1st and 2nd years (August 2001) and I was nearly ready to take the final driving test. However, classes restarted and I stopped taking driving lessons once again for almost an entire year. My 2 year apprentice license expire date was August 2002, so I didn't have another choice but to take additional driving lessons in order to pass the final test, otherwise I would have to restart everything. I retook driving lessons in May 2002 I believe, just before the 2nd year finals. With so much stuff to do and to study, I still had to skip classes to take more driving lessons... In June 2002 I took the final driving test and I failed. I am very confident I deserved to pass but the examiner was a complete a**hole. I retook the exam in the first days of July and that's when I finally obtained my driving license. Eventually, I passed every class from the 2nd year with good marks. I'm not exactly proud of it now.

Not everything was as horrible as I'm describing during the second year, though. For instance, I started to socialize with some of my classmates that I never sticked close to during the 1st year. We obviously had a lot of individual work to do in every class, but some of the tasks were so exhaustive and overwhelming that we were required to team up in working groups raging between 3 to 5 people. In order to make things work out more more effectively, we would usually use the same team in the required group tasks for different classes. If all the people in the group worked well together, things would just go smooth, despite the insane amount of stuff we all had to do both individually and as a group. However, if there was something wrong with the group, things could easily go wrong and affect a student's performance at most classes...

My first year's working group didn't go very well. Rui was a great classmate that seemed to admire my devotion to the university. However, he was older and he had his life quite filled already, with a wife, several kids to support and a part-time job at night. Even though he still did the best he could, unfortunately he didn't have much spare time to work in group, so I had to compensate for this part. Micaela was the only other person in my group that worked harder as well, but only two people trying to do the work of 4 or 5 can't end up well. As a result, half the people from my 1st year's working group failed to clear a few important classes and they stayed behind... I somehow managed to pass every class. So, in this 2nd year, I found a new working group with very interesting people: Pedro, Vanessa, Tania and Sidel, just to name a few. They were all dedicated people who were really interested in working together. And those people in particular, as well as several other classmates from separate groups worth mentioning, were those who stayed together until the very end of this journey that was the university - or college, like you guys from the US call it. 
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R.I.P. Satoru Iwata

Here I was complaining about my life a few hours ago when I suddenly learn that Nintendo's CEO just passed away. I guess that, no matter how bad life seems to be, it can always be worse... R.I.P. Satoru Iwata :(
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12/07/2015

Boring...

I don't know why this became so popular. I assume it's because it's made by Nintendo, the most annoying videogame company since 2014. 

Saying I dislike this game is just me being nice. The truth is... this game means nothing to me. And it has an exclusive amiibo with it, which makes me hate it even more because that basically made me buy it. I'm not a fan of shooters in general but, for some reason, every now and then I have this urge to play them once in a while. This, however is not an ordinary shooter.

I really don't understand what's so funny about shooting everything with paint. That's basically what this game is about: a lousy attempt at making a shooter that can be played by everyone without the slightest hint of realistic violence involved. I guess that's a Nintendo trademark: "it's not just for kids, it's for everyone". In fact, almost everything suitable for kids is suitable for everyone. Ah, I guess that as much as people have fun with it, that's ok. To me, that's just boring. But I still bought it anyway, so screw logic...


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Sucks...

When I expected to see things going a little better and my life returning to normal, nah... everything had to remain the same. This sucks, and it's causing me permanent psychological damage... I could say most things will be fixed within a couple of weeks, but now I believe Half Life 3 will become reality before anything changes for the best. Anyway, it's now time to resume with a few updates but... unfortunately, nothing major. Just a bunch of regular stuff that everyone knows about, but still worth showing off.
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