An Overdue Update

School has kept me extremely busy, so I've been neglecting things like my blogs. Well, my personal blogs for fun. I had to start a blog for a class, so that one has gotten all of my attention lately (you can check it out here if you're interested).

Besides school, I got a new laptop and Halo ODST in September. My old laptop has given me tons of problems over the years, like the battery dying (and if I hadn't removed it, the battery would have eventually killed the laptop). The newest problem was that a purple vertical line appeared down the left side of the screen. If you want to see what I'm talking about, check out this page. Apparently this was a common problem with the HP ZD8000 laptop. I decided that this was the last straw, so I went out and bought a new laptop. The new one is an Acer. It's a million times quieter and cooler than the ZD8000, and also a lot faster. I'm still getting used to the keyboard (it's not as sensitive as the ZD8000's was when it worked properly), but so far I'm liking it.

Halo ODST is another thing I'm liking. I preordered it in the summer, and was counting down the days until it was released. Luckily it didn't disappoint. I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like (school is keeping me very busy) but I'm enjoying it. The campaign is a bit off - it's not as bad as Halo 2, but not as good as Halo 1 and 3. But once you play through it, you unlock the entire New Mombasa Streets, which is a lot of fun to wander around in. And the multiplayer is fun too. You battle with up to three friends against waves of enemies, instead of gainst other players. It's really tough, but great fun.

I also went to see Streetlight Manifesto in Toronto back in September. They were amazing! You can check out the pics on flickr!

The one thing I'm sad about is my lack of time to write. I wrote a quick poem on Apocalypse Madness for last month's quote, but missed writing for the September quote. I got to post this month's quote, and I'm really hoping I'll have time to write a couple of stories for it. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak some writing time in during the end of next week when I should have a bit of time.

360 Back Home!

My Xbox 360 came home yesterday! Well, it isn't exactly "mine" that came home yesterday. They sent me a refurbished one. I believe that they are taking in the ones that break and sending out ones that they had already fixed. But that doesn't matter to me, as all of my saved games and downloaded content are on my hard drive, which stayed home this entire time.

Needless to say, after enabling everything on the new console, I played Halo Wars all night last night.

The Continuing Xbox 360 Saga

So my 360 was shipped off last Friday. I got an email this afternoon saying that Microsoft had received it. And then when I checked my email again this evening, I had two new messages from Microsoft: my console was fixed, and it has already been shipped back to me!!!!!!!! I can't believe they've fixed it so quickly!!!!!!

The Xbox 360 Saga

On Wednesday night, I came home from a friend's house. We had been making a new map on Halo 3's Forge, which we had called "Tunnels." My friend uploaded it onto his file share, so when I got home, I tried to retrieve it. And that was when the trouble started.

Halo kept freezing. If I rebooted the 360 with the game still in it, it gave me the "red ring of death" (pictured). But if I pulled it out and rebooted, or had a different game in, then it was fine. Examining the disc, it looked rather scratched up. So I decided to unplug everything, then try it all again in the morning.

The next morning, I tried turning the 360 on. This time I couldn't even get to the dashboard. All I got was the red ring.

I tried to go online to look into repairing my console. But I ran into a bit of trouble with that, so I had to phone Xbox. I had to get going though, so I had to phone them back after school. Thankfully, I found out that Microsoft had extended the warranty of the 360 due to this problem. My 360 was still covered!

I ran over to a friend's place. We then went to get Halo resurfaced (which was probably kind of dumb - we should have tried it first). Once it was resurfaced, we tried it out, and it worked fine. So after school I had to phone Xbox back. When all was said and done, my 360 had to be sent in. It should be back within two to three weeks, and I'll be getting a free month of Xbox Live for the inconvenience!

This did come at a kind of bad time though. On the one hand, I have essays to write, so I won't be distracted by Halo Wars. But on the other hand, I'm planning on writing one of the essays on Halo, using some quotes from Halo 3...so hopefully I'll be able to rely on Youtube, or go over to a friend's place to research.

What's Happening this December?

I haven't really done a post about what is going on in my life for a while now. So I figured, now is a great time, as I have a lot in store for December!

Well, I just finished an update on the List. The List has 102 books on it as of this moment. As I said in my post, I am planning on doing a lot of reading. I have started another anthology, I have a few graphic novels to read, and I'd love to get another List novel out of the way before starting into next term's school books.

But before I can even begin to tackle my reading projects, I am in the middle of exams (quite literally. I has one exam yesterday, and my last one is on Monday). My first exam went well (I hope!) and I have to get going on studying for the next one. Oh yeah, and I have to keep going with my applications to Grad school.

While this is happening, I have decided to stay away from Xbox Live. I've been itching to play a couple of games (I finally opened Assassin's Creed! It's fun! Why did I wait so long to try it?). I most likely won't be able to get back onto Live until Tuesday night.

But more important than Xbox are the writing projects. I know I already wrote an Apocalypse Madness story this month (so I'm off the hook as far as that goes), but I have an idea for another story or two. I can't make any promises, but hopefully they'll work out.

And now the moment that everyone's been waiting for: Spacelord should be returning next Monday (the 15th)!!! This isn't official yet (depending on how things go, I may have to hold off until the 22nd) but that's what I'm aiming for. My official decision will become public by the end of this week. So stay tuned!!!!!

Ninja Gaiden 2

Ok - I am a very big fan of the original Ninja Gaiden for Xbox (well, Ninja Gaiden Black anyway. I'm told it's the same game only harder). So when I found out Team Ninja was making a new Ninja Gaiden, I was ecstatic. But after putting the game into my 360, my excitement slowly but surely trickled away and was replaced with disappointment.

Ninja Gaiden Black was an amazing game. It had everything: a hot ninja, fighting, puzzles, a well-developed story line, interesting characters. Everything seemed to flow together nicely, nothing seemed tedious, and everything seemed to have a reason behind it. It had so many twists and turns that you never saw what was coming next. And did I mention the hot ninja?

Ninja Gaiden 2 was not so amazing. Yes, the hot ninja is still there. And the fighting. So much fighting. But that was about it. It drags you all over the world (at one point you're dumped off in South America with no real warning or reason. They also call the level "Heart of Darkness," which is kind of lame - it should have been set in the Congo) with nothing to really tie all the levels together. There was only one puzzle in the entire game that had me stumped for a few minutes (and then it ended up quite easy to solve in the end); otherwise it was an incredibly linear path throughout the game. They also had a chance to give 2 an awesome ending (similar to Black) but they blew that, too! Oh, I was also really mad at the invisible walls everywhere - the game doesn't let you explore at all! You have to stay on the path!

The one thing I will give to Ninja Gaiden 2 were the graphics. Some of the bosses looked amazing! It's just too bad that most of their characters seemed really stupid. The game would have been so much more enhanced if the characters had had a bit more background to them. Also, their design often didn't seem to match their elements. (The first Greater Fiend was hurling lightning at you, and then the second one claims to be the Lord of Storms? How does that work? And why is the first fiend creating a lightning waste land, while the Ruler of Storms is sitting around in what looks like Venice?)

I was also impressed with the weapon selection. Ninja Gaiden 2 kept some of my favourite weapons from the first game (Vigoorian Flail anyone?) while adding some exciting new ones (Eclipse Scythe). While I was sad that not all of my favourites made it into the new game (I miss you, Dabilahro!), the new ones more than compensated (Eclipse Scythe). I was a bit torn on the new upgrading system for the weapons though; in Black, every weapon had a different number of levels, while in 2, everything had 3 levels (except the Dragon Sword, which ends up with 4).

Overall, I was really disappointed with Ninja Gaiden 2. I was expecting a game that would be as amazing as the first one. Sadly, I felt that Ninja Gaiden 2 fell far short of Black. The weapons and enemies were entertaining for awhile, but the whole game wasn't put together nearly as well as Black. With Black, I was playing the game to know what happened next. With 2, I was playing the game just for the sake of beating it (and for some gamerpoints, cause hey, why not?)

The Ninja Gaiden series is, in my opinion, reflecting the Halo series. Hopefully if there is a third one, Team Ninja will do more than just work on the combat.