HDO

I feel like blogging again.

Super Stardust HD
SSHD is an arcade style shooter (destroy anything that moves, collect power-ups, dodge anything that moves and isn't a power-up) available on the PSN. Oh God it's crack...and has over the past week or so, admittedly occupied more of my free gaming time than I care to admit. I miss this game genre.

Shadow of the Colossus
I was reading an interesting discussion earlier this week on games with sad plot lines and this title came up multiple times. I know that it has received extremely high regard when it was released in 2005, but I never picked it up for whatever reason. It's only like, $15 used at Gamestop; Might pick it up this week.

Metal Gear Solid 4
I have a huge strictly metaphorical gamer hard-on for anything Metal Gear. I consequently adore all aspects of the game/story, including the parts that make abso-fucking-lutely no sense. I was going to type out a lengthy afterthought review but I'm sure that at this point, anything that I could possibly ever say regarding the gameplay and plot has already been covered a hundred times over.

Among all installations, 4 by far has the best gameplay and control scheme. They really polished and streamlined it to the point where it is *gasp* actually valid as an action game. But that said, you really do have to play through all of the previous Metal Gear Solid games in order to fully appreciate and understand MGS4.

WoW
*Thinking about going to BlizzCon this year* I am, to be honest, not really much of a convention goer though...

Happy umm June! I had five or so half-completed entries milling on Google Docs for two months. By the time I got around to editing and reviewing them, all were out of date/irrelevant; Meh. Gaming stuff:

• I updated the guild site/forums. Note to self: Update the homepage recruitment, kills, etc.
• Bought a Playstation 3, GTA IV, and HDMI/DVI adapter the other week and have spent every free moment fawning over it.
• Speaking of PS3 games, Metal Gear Solid 4 comes out soon. I should really wait until I beat GTA IV before buying it, but we'll see how temptation goes. My gaming life follows this pattern: Buy a game, half-complete it, buy another game, ignore game one. Consequently, I have a stack of unfinished games. Though, most of them are left unfinished because they sucked or were a giant waste of time (*cough FFXII*).

Workspace obsession
My living space is becoming a dump. I'm on a small quest again to organize it but I cannot find office furniture that fits my exact needs dimension wise. Everything is either too wide, too tall, or does not match. I want a relatively narrow drawer/filing unit. No wider than 12" & no taller than 27".

This one from the wonderful world of Ikea might work. I very badly need more storage space to organize guitar cables, charging cables, USB cables...Everything at the moment is on the floor.

Other things/WoW

• I am bent on learning how to play every single tune from Mega Man II on the guitar. I tabbed around half of the Wily Castle theme, but got lazy and just googled the rest.
• A guild member pointed out this site. Handy quick gear check/reference /App vetting tool.
• I have a growing stack of badges and nothing to buy for my tanking set. I should just blow them all on Emp Saph's and epic gem out the rest of my slots. There's not a whole lot of gear that I'm going to be upgrading any time soon (until Hyjal).

It's been a good month for guild progression. After kind of a lull in 25-man progression, we are coming into our stride and downing bosses at a good place. Having a fairly consistent team of raiders helps immensely. I spent a fortune chanting and gemming my new tanking gear and my healing set. I replaced half of it within the past month or so but never bothered gemming or chanting it properly.

Oh, Zul'Aman is finally on clear; we blasted through the entire instance last Wednesday and got our first full clear. Zul'jin died on the 3rd try (2% on the first attempt lol). In the middle of phase 3 we collectively realized that no one knew what the hell to do for phases 4 and 5. So there we were mid-fight, fast as hell googling strats and reading off of WoWWiki on vent, LOL.

I got the Battleworn Tuskguard off of Malacrass to replace my Tier-4 helm and another 2-hander toy off of ZJ to play with/dump in the bank. We were a couple minutes off from making the 3rd chest, close!

The HMgT tanking trinket apparently only drops when I am not in the run /boo.

Earlier this year Belkin released the n52te, an updated version of the n52 gaming keypad that I wrote about last year. I caved in and bought it recently. The n52 is comfortable because it has an ergonomically designed hand rest (if you have the n52te, it's coated in rubber). Out of all the gamepads that I've tried, the n52 was the only comfortable peripheral, in my opinion at least.

I think that many people are put off by the fact that the n52 doesn't have as many keys as some of the other popular gamepads. If you are wise about using both the n52 shift states (red, green, blue) and the normal keyboard shift states (shift, control, alt, and any combination of such), you will have MORE than enough buttons to bind everything that you could possibly want. Anyways, the n52te:

The keys on the n52te are a huge improvement. One of my only gripes about the original device was that the keys, especially the circular button, were very stiff and took quite a bit of time to break in. The new buttons are way more responsive. They are soft and quiet, I'd say somewhere between laptop keys and normal soft keys "feel wise.

The scroll wheel was also significantly loosened up so that it feels more akin to a normal mouse wheel. I own a Razer Diamondback, it feels pretty similar in terms of click and looseness. The dpad on the n52te comes with a "joystick" on it, kind of similar to the ones on the Playstation Dual Shock controllers. It's made of plastic and doesn't grip your thumb sufficiently. It is however, easily removable if you do not like it.

I don't know why Belkin/Razer chose do to this, but the null shift state was eliminated. Consequently, that is one less set of keys that you are able to bind. So if you use all 4 (null, green, red and blue), you are kind of SoL. Rumor is that the null state might be re-added in a future driver update.

The orange rubbery non-slip pad has been replaced by 6 rubbery feet, which grip better. The orange pad though adequate, still slid a bit, especially when my desk was dirty. Earlier n52te models had problems with the pads being uneven and rocking. Belkin seems to have resolved the issue since my gamepad is fine.

The profiles now load onto the controller's internal memory, allowing you to plug and play it without having to install anything. The software, now powered by Razer, is completely different now. The editor and the loader have been integrated. A few people have complained that the new software was hard to use. It doesn't bother me, but I don't extensively use the macros so, *shrug.*

To be honest, the $70 price tag for the Tournament Edition is a bit much (the new keys really really do feel much nicer though...and it matches my keyboard and mouse lol). If you already own an n52, it's not a huge upgrade. If you don't own one, if you can get past the learning curve it is an invaluable gaming tool. Highly recommended!

Tips:

• Bind your movement keys to the cursor keys instead of WASD. That way, you will be able to chat AND move, even if the chatbar is active. No more: "wwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa fuck."
• It was also suggested to bind all of your most commonly used spells to non printing keys.
• The LED backlight can be toggled on and off with a switch on the bottom of the pad.

I'll post my bindings and profile in another entry. This post is long enough...

The Sunwell badge loot vendor popped at around 8am this morning on my server. I really did try hard to find a valid reason why I couldn't go to work but alas, I'll have to wait until this evening in order to cash in. I have all of my gems and leg armor materials ready to craft and cut. It's a reasonably good idea to buy any chanting and gemming materials that you need before the vendor on your server pops, since there is a high chance that prices will skyrocket. I do though, need to find someone who can craft a Solid Empyrean Sapphire, won it off of Magtheridon this weekend. I very heavily regret prematurely socketting my ZA +15 stamina quest gem. Why didn't I save it?

For approximately a month before 2.4 I was slacking off on all of my daily quests, letting my gold stash dip below 200g across all characters. It's now safely in the 4 digit range again, thanks to the abundance of new daily quests lol (and reputation completism). Did all of my raid fish and material farming last night. I need to remember to purchase flasks before next weekend. I should otherwise be good on elixirs, pots, oils, etc. My purchase list for tonight are the Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor and the Chestplate of Stoicism. In comparison to other items for reference:

• Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor vs Unwavering Legguards: 0 armor, -7 stamina, +3 def, +43 dodge rating, +37 spell damage, -30 shield block rating, -59 shield block rating
• Chestplate of Stoicism vs Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian: +61 armor, +18 stamina (-4 if both pieces are socketted with all Solid Stars), +29 defense, -4 dodge, -35 spell damage, +39 block value, -2 sockets
• Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian vs Panzar'Thar Breastplate: +157 armor, +9 stamina, -4 defense, -24 block rating, +38 dodge, -39 block value, +35 spell damage, +0 sockets
• Chestplate of Stoicism vs Panzar'Thar Breastplate: +315 armor, +27 stamina (+3 stamina if both pieces are socketted with all Solid Stars), +25 defense, +34 dodge, -24 block rating, -2 sockets, equal block value

The extra defense is nice because I'm barely sitting at 490 now. I'll probably replace 150 health with the new +15 def chest enchant. If I find that I am avoiding attacks to the extreme detriment of threat in the easier raid instances, I can swap out pieces. Defense isn't useless past 490; I think I might have stated that somewhere months ago. Oh, none of the shields that I want will drop. Neither will that new trinket.../cursed.