My coach is a monster DX (Plus two fans topic suggestions)

As some of you trolls may know, I'm doing some boxing with my father. Recreational stuff, I'm doing the training and some sparring, that's about it. I love the sport, I'm dedicated to it, but I do not believe I could be a pro. I'm already too old for that XD

Still, it helps me with managing my real-life. Stress relief, an excellent way to be in shape in body and mind, gives you more energy during the day... And let's be honest, I love the sparring XD
It helps me in my videos too! Better concentration and stuff, so that's another plus! After a couple of months I'm really starting to be in shape. I'm now holding up for more than three full rounds against my coach (when he wears the boxing pads), and that's after all the heating up we're doing. Also, my body is transforming. Dragon scales and all!

...I wish. I'm just losing weight for now, trading it for muscular mass (tiny amounts at a time), but since I am someone with a low self-esteem, it is a wonderful feeling. So, my coach thinks I can manage more. *You have the guts and the willpower, so I guess I should make you suffer a bit. Starting next class, I'm gearing up and you better be ready!*
He then gives me *homework* to do. I have full training sessions three times a week, that's my minimal, but other than that I'm already doing exercises at home. But this...*halp*

-Starting with roadwork and stretches (more important than most people think)
-Set-ups
-Push-ups
-Jumping jacks
-Repeat all of that at least 2 times
-Burpees
-And some more stretches, so that you won't be stiff as a blade the next day...SO THAT YOU CAN DO IT AGAIN!!!!

And he wants me to do that daily. Well I have no excuse, BURN THAT FAT!


Also, I asked the Facebook fan base for a topic to discuss about. I am bored at work, you see? Well, I got two suggestions, *Music* by Joe Morales and *The 13th centuries technologic advancements with fire* by Gabriel Kim.

So:

-I love music. May it be classical, rock, jazz, jazz fusion, blues, swing, 8-bit, keygen, whatever. If it is well done I'll bob my head to it. Some fans may know I have three gurus in life: My father (for obvious *mine is better than yours* reasons), my God the Fire-Birdy and Herbie Hancock, one of the greatest musical icon of all time.

back to geek-y-ness. Some games like Monster Hunter, Kingdom Hearts, Tales of Phantasia/Symphonia or Drakengard 2 are granted excellent musical scores that only makes them better and assimilates the player into them, thus I suggest them to everyone interested. If you already played and enjoyed these games, HI-FIVE! (Of course, every Megaman, Metroid, Zelda, Sonic and so on games also contains excellent tracks, but everyone knows them XD)

And

-Burning evil witches (and other monstrosities) with science in the 13th century? My phoenix was there, let me ask him how it went!

....

Ok I cannot write this down for the kids. Oh well, see ya next time!


PS: Notice the different signature under this sentence. Anza's Journal will assemble my real-life thoughts. In case of a zombie apocalypse. After all, 2012 is near!

Hello...Journal?

How about I write something other than the usual review and bad/good news I usually do? You guys would love that?

I'm talking about some aspects of my personal life. Nothing too personal, I do not believe you need that now, but some thoughts could be nice. I think. Iono, you'll have to tell me if you love that idea or not.

SO! Let's catch up to this last week-end. First things first, I went to a bar with Dave and our other homies. It was amazingly relaxing. I had a long week, filled with my full-time job AND all of that editing I did. I am proud to say that both Fear and Megaman X are completed. They're just waiting to be uploaded on youtube. Anyway, had a couple of beers and some shooters, nothing extreme. We get back at home at about 3 AM and decide to take a nap. When I wake up, it was 6:30. *Nice nap that was* says I.
...But why is it dark outside?

I quickly jump out of bed (yes yes, I jump out) and check the clock on my PC. 6:30 PM . WUUUT!
Apparently we all slept for more than 15 hours. Jesus. Last time this happened I was 17 years old, just after a concert I was playing in!

So. I realise I am hungry. Really hungry. THAT MUCH! But then I realise I didn't tried Dungeon Defenders yet, and it looks amazing! I sit down to check on steam it is installed and all, just waiting for me to steal my soul....I mean try it for a few minutes. So I tell to myself *meh, I'll try it for a few minutes*.The devil was watching, I swear.

At 9:15 PM Dave just burges into the room telling me the last time he slept so much is when his girlfrie...and then he related how I looked like a zombie DX


All I can say is that Dungeon Defenders is really good. Lot ot fun times. I also played with DMT and it was a blast. If you want some DD moments, then you better start begging for it! *rubs hands with a evil-ish smile*

Sunday morning, I decide to boot up my pc. It starts for a few seconds then shuts down immediately. Surprised, I start it again. And again. and so on. It took me about 15 tries until the pc started. Then it acted like it never happened. I have no idea on how this could happen, so I'll have to check things out. If I do not upload videos for a while, then you know what happened :S

Then I went to my parents place for supper. I try to go there once a week. I'm already taking boxing lessons with my dad, which is a lot of fun, and I'm working at my mother's place. She's responsible of a building for people who have mental illness. Nothing crazy, just people who need help with their lives. But that ain't really seeing them, so sunday evenings I tend to go there when I can. This time, something interesting happened on television. There is a show we Quebecers (or whatever you guys call us) really love, which is *Tout le monde en parle*. Or *Everyone talks of it*. It's always interesting and this week was about politics. As you may know, it's not going really well in Quebec government side. I could write a huge story about things, but let's just say we live on pillars made of dirt. On show, they were talking about an investigation commission (I hope I got that right). They want people to witness against something. Which makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that there will be NO protection offered to them. And of course, nobody's crazy enough to go and do it.
So, you had a government representant, someone who's working for the Prime Minister and some journalists. They were tearing each other's necks, but politely. kudos on the journalist, he was obviously really angry but kept it all inside. he never sweared or anything else. (I forgot his name I am very sorry for that :S)

Meanwhile, my sister (the youngest) shaved my beard (not all of it, just so that it looks better) and cut my hair a bit. And I paid her. Now before you freak out, here's the situation. My beloved sister is a nerd en devenir. Only, her pc sucks. Big time. It's a 2002 model. Yeeeah, so I proposed her something to help. She takes care of my beautiful face, and I pay her. It would cost me just as much if I went to a salon, so I think it is worthwhile. And she loves that too! She now have more than 120$ just from pocket money, which is a nice sum.

BTW, she's a fan of Terraria, resident Evil and Ubisoft in general. kudos little sister!

Then I went to work. My very boring and tedious work where I clean stuff for a couple hours and make sure everyone is safe and all. I sure wish I had something more exciting to do. This is why I love the blog, I can just come on here and write stuff while I try to stay awake.

This is where it ends. I hope this wasn't too painful to read and I wish you a good day. Entry out!

What is being scary?

some time ago, before I started playing F.E.A.R, I had a discussion with Kinjry on scary stuff. I told him the fans voted on F.E.A.R for my next LP, that I never played it and that it *apparently* was a scary game. Kinjry, being a natural Kinjry with ease, laughed it out, saying that F.E.A.R is miles away from being scary. Now that I've played the game, I agree entirely with what he thought, but not how he sentenced it.

See, for awesome and manly persons like me and Kin, little girls going around scaring people ain't really affecting us. Oh sure, it may make us jump a couple of times, but by no means did we stopped to catch out breath. In my *blind* playthrough I never hesitated to move forward or to dive into dark rooms. There is only one moment where I stopped for a few seconds and still I kept going forward, blazing through everything (especially windows, they all need to be exterminated). Personally, I was more scared of my goldfish that I had when I was a kid. It died right before I started playing Super Mario 64. When I first saw the giant purple sea snale-eel thingy just roaring at me, I throw'd my remote in the air and ran to the living room. I immediately thought Karma for not taking care of my little goldfish. My mom never understood XD

So in short, games like F.E.A.R, Resident Evil, Dead Space or any *BOO* based scary games are nothing at all. For me, things that slowly creeps in will be way more effective, like Silent Hill or Penumbra. Or my goldfish...
As for Kinjry...Well let's say he's afraid of things too disgusting to describe.

Oh, and I'm also scared of Freddy. But for a single scene, only that one gave me the creeps. It's the bedroom kill..on the bed...all that blood...I will never sleep again...OK I am done!


What about you, viewer? Want to share your fears? I would love that!

Halloween special and more!

Halloween is coming faster than ever but this time I am prepared. Last year I sort of missed it by doing nothing at all, and the fans were disappoint. You shouldn't expect anything out of my ways (and my pockets, mostly) but you can wait for a small surprise this year. If you really want a hint, it's gonna be a classic.

Other than that, I FINALLY finished FEAR. I never played or watched it, so the ending kind of shocked me. I wasn't waiting for such a weird finale to happen, really. So to beat the F.E.A.R out of my head I promptly started my Megaman X Let's Play. Not even two hours into it and I'm halfway through. I kind of overplayed it a bit when I was younger. Poor penguin never stood a chance DX
Also joining me into the first recording session of it is Erillian. Trolling me whenever he could...IN FRENCH!

...Moving on. Some time ago I received a donation from someone most of you know. A certain DMT offered me Clive Barker's Jericho on Steam and he wants me to play it. He ordered me to not search for any kind of videos or detail since the game is a bit...unique. That's how he said it. I am scared.

And now, some not-so-good news. As you may know, Kinjry, Arkendi and myself are doing a Co-op LP of Dead Island. However we didn't posted anything in quite some time and you fans are wondering what is happening. Simply said, Kinjry's internet connection was so bad that he had to move in a new home alltogether. I don't blame him, he is not blaming himself, so please be patient and comprehensive: This pisses us off as much as it is pissing you readers. I can only promise that as soon as we can record our gaming sessions again, we will.
This obviously affects L4D2, Kinjry simply cannot play anything at all. I do not want to embark into a big project without him, as he became a major character in my videos. We all miss his rants (most of them are aimed at my french, but I professionally ignore them) and he will be back soon enough. In the meantime, TF2 and other Let's Plays for your pretty eyes.

I would like to use this unfortunate absense of brain-eating content to give some attention to RockLeeSmile. Again XD
RockLeeSmile is a good friend of mine who desperately need more attention. He is the man who did all the Super Meat Boy Fanmade maps I played. I know you enjoyed those meaty adventures, do not try to hide it. Well, he recently started a Let's Play series of The Binding Of Isaac and it is worth your time. I personally watched all of his episode and was greatly satisfied with his performance. I also enjoyed his fails with a vengeful smile! So if you want to be awesome (or already are) then you should go watch his stuff and comment on what you see. Give him tricks, ask questions on the game, say he haz a sexah voice or anything else you would like to say. I think he deserves it.

...You should also comment on my own stuff before I cry DX

Ok I am done at this point. More awesome things coming your way, thanks for reading and SUBSCRIBE ON THE BLOODY BLOG I AM TIRED OF ALWAYS WARNING YOU ABOUT IT GAAAAHHH
see ya.

RAGE Review

I was supposed to make a video review of this game, but it doesn't love Vista very much. It probably have nothing to do with it, but I still blame it, just like everyone else XD

Now that this is out of the way, RAGE. Been some years since ID ever made something. And the game is 60 bucks at launch, which REALLY hurt my pockets. And why no demo available at all?.  Did I mention I cannot record anything? Oh, I did... Not to mention that most of the PC players experienced somewhat huge graphical problems. Some of these players (including me) couldn't even play for the first day or two. I have Minecraft, so I do not really mind, but I understand why some players would be enRAGEd over this.

I know, this was horrible.

Still, as an amateur critic, I have to make a honest review about the game's core. And I must say, once you get past this chaotic launch, the game is really good! Maybe not as good as I expected, but it was worth my buck. And hey, made me write some more on the blog. That's a plus!

So, you start your journey in the skin of a super soldier who slept for over 100 years. In space. Insert portal space joke here. Your rather brutal awakening becomes even more brutal the moment you set foot outside your pod (which crashed not too long ago) as enemies are already jumping you, trying to strangle your pretty throat. Fortunately you are saved by a dude who just happens to be there. He explains that the world is now a post-apocalyptic earth filled with bandits clans and wannabe Combines army named the Authority.

Not even 15 minutes into the game, I'm already heading towards my first mission. Terminate a clan of bandits before they terminate us. Aaaaand it's pretty much like this for the next 6 hours 85% of the time.  Fortunately for us (and for Id), the gameplay is really nice. Driving around is a joy, combat feels satisfying despite some restricted melee moves (sometimes you will see your fist going through someone's jaw, but it will not count) and the enemies actually feels like they want to kick your sorry butt. First things first, I started playing in Nightmare, the hardest difficulty. You know me, if it is available, I will take it. Well, I do NOT suggest it to new players. I actually got my ass kicked more than once (but no worries, I love pain very much). Enemies were always taking cover, they all were professional gunslingers and did tons of damage very easily. It was challenging, maybe even a bit cheap, but I never went to the point of punching my screen. The game knew how to give me this feeling of satisfaction whenever I did something awesome and it also forced me to be careful due to the fact that you can die and lose some of your progress. I have never seen that since.... since a long time. And I'm talking about shooters, leave Dungeons of Dredmor out of this. Nightmare was a bit too much, especially since I didn't know how everything worked, and after a couple of hours I switched to hard. This is the difficulty I suggest as everything was balanced very well. If you're new to shooters, normal is fo you.

Combat is straight forward at first. Cover, shoot, cover and you do that until everyone is dead. The first bandits area is super easy since it is the training area. It becomes exciting when they start to communicate and use tactical stuff. They will actually hide from you, cover their friends, throw grenades, tell the others to pull back if they're getting overpowered and so on. Some bandits clans are more organized than others, and it shows. This is a huge point for me. Primitive clans will fight you with clubs and knives, say harsh stuff and insult you whenever they can and they will not give a f*** for their clanmates. More organized clans with be fully equipped with guns, armor, grenades and even toy cars with bombs on them. The Enforcers (from the Authority) are super well trained, constantly trying to flank you, infantry hiding behind their shield-wielding friends. The first time you see them is quite satisfying. At some point you will die, more than one, but fortunately for you you have this internal defibrilator. Watch out, as it only works once and needs to recharge before being used again. So you can die, only not that much.

However, I still say that the story is bland. It isn't completely worthless and you never feel the need to slap your forehead due to exasperation, but it is very simple. But do not go thinking it is entirely boring. Some segments of the game actually gave me a serious blast. I actually had a lot of fun.

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!

For example, at some point you're asked to go to a factory and destroy it. And I do mean DESTROY it. At the end of it everything was falling down and crushing people, setting them on fire. Survivors were running away, panicking, shouting to everyone else to run away while they would *try* to hold you back. It was a very entertaining experience (due to a very special gimmick useable in this particular place. But that is something else) and I am glad to say that it wasn't the only moment worthy of my time. Also, FINALLY, there is a lot of different enemies. Maybe not at first, sure, but you will encounter bandits, mutants, Authority enforcers in super-armors, vehicles, creatures, mini-bosses AND bosses... it isn't the biggest list ever made, but it is diversified. Changing your strategy because of this or that dude is always a plus.

But, in my opinion, the progression is a bit stiff. The story progresses with main quests, or missions, leading you from point A to point B, asking you to do this task and coming back It feels like a mix of borderlands and Bioshock but with barely any explorable areas, So you could say it is a Doom 3.5, on earth, in a desert and without demons (you do not have a flashlight, not needed). There is no chacacter levels either, so do not expect another Fallout 3. There is secondary missions and filler stuff, but nothing felt substantial. No ruins to freely explore or secret areas that will reward you for your courage or cunning. Sometimes a quest will lead you to somewhere exciting like a ghost city or whatever but it will mostly contain one-path corridors that will lead you directly to your objectives. Because of this, the game feels on rails. Game progression is extremely fast paced, so fast that you may even forget about subquests, and even if you do bother about having some time for yourself your options are limited. Plus you are rewarded with money most of the time, so looking for secrets may be disappointing. Tired of the main quests? Then you either do minigames or you do fedex quests. Other times, you are asked to go back to *dungeons* you already cleared to fetch a specific item or recipe. Sad day is sad indeed. Random events (like towns getting attacked, or barrages made by bandits, or ANYTHING else really) could have been interesting and it is sad they weren't willing to develop some more. (To note, I didn't beat the game yet. I will come back on this page and specify if there is a turn of events somewhere)

There is racing events, which I loved enough for a short while. The obligatory racing quests were short enough to not be annoying but I never felt like I had to complete the rest (you have optional driving races)). The driving, once again, is a charm, and destroying stuff with your mounted weapons (or directly ramming your enemies, that works too) is uber satisfying. Missiles are a bit OP to my liking, but nothing's perfect. Easily forgivable. The bad point is that there is only two modes of racing: time trials and tacing against three other drivers. Oh sure, there is different sub-modes, for example in some races you can kill your enemies and in others you cannot, but still... a desdruction derby in an arena would have been perfect, especially for a game with this ambience. (To note, Racing is way more interesting in Multiplayer. My problem is that there is no reason to limit the single player campaign that much)

Anyway, the first hours of the game are there so that you can get new stuff. And it comes steadily, from weapons to vehicles to upgrades. It feels really regulated how you get something in each mission. NPCs never give you something to help you out, they give you their trash so you can help them instead. I wasn't bothered with this, it adds to the characters. They're greedy, it's in their nature. Why giving you this shotgun right now when they can give it as a reward instead! Even old grannies will ask you to go kill people, it helps them! You cannot grab new stuff on your own, every weapons dropped by enemies will vanish (you cannot grab it otherwise, I tried) but enemies will give bullets upon death. Crafting recipes are, well, quite basic. Make lockgrinders or bandages or grenades. You cannot invent new stuff. At least not in the first 8 hours. Doing favors for other people will quickly make you beg for something else. Except the Mutant TV show event. That was nice. Fortunately the story does catch up at some point. You will have a real goal (guess what: help the good guys defeat the bad guys) and there will be story twists. At least the game didn't hold me by my hand for 5 hours, I was very grateful for that. It let me die and learn, as it should be.

So, RAGE in short? Nice combat with lots of different enemies and different weapons with special ammo that will make you adapt to threats in multiple scenarios, nice driving mechanics and some good characters and details. The story is basic but there. Feelt like somebody doing a job he doesn't love doing but the minimals were achieved. And there is some good multiplayer moments like coop or more racing stuff with or against other players. No deathmatches though (and it makes no sense at all, especially from them). There is no demo available (which really begs to question why) so I suggest you go watch some gameplay videos before wasting your 60 bucks. But if you love the smell of napalm and blood in the morning, the roaring cries of your engines when you smash into things and the scream of your enemies crumbling under your assault, then you may be interested.


Thanks for the read and have a good day!

What it REALLY means to be a French Nerd!

All right, time to be serious, honest and brave. Everyone knows it, everyone fears it (may it be of terror or disgust) but nobody, except the french fans, knows what it really means to grow up as a french canadian video game nerd. Well, allow me to demonstrate through the eyes of a frenchy eyes of my childhood
(imagine we go back in time).

First of all, if your father shows you Pac-Man or Mario when you're barely 4 years old (1991), you are screwed. You are. Sure, by themselves you will not have that much problems, but then you will be interested in games with stories AND TEXTS in them like Zelda, Metroid, Faxanadu or whatever. You will not be able to understand ANYTHING! Yet you will hang to them no matter what. You do not really know why or how. Oh, at that time, stuff like Nintendo Power didn't exist for us. Poor poor Quebec nerds raging at their little RPGs...

The result of this is that you would become good at games like Megaman, or any action-oriented games (at least this is the case for kids my age, but I am ready to bet some older people could kick ass in video games too!). Reason being you can COMPLETE THESE GAMES by usually going in one direction and it's not like Megaman is hard to understand. Kick ass, kick more ass, beat the game. Same with any kind of scrolling shooters or platformers...Contra anyone? Now you know why I kick scores in these games.

I may be talking about video games, but what about movies or books, or music for that matter? What about Saturday morning shows, do we even have those? Well, surprisingly enough, movies and books were nearly all translated. Even the bad ones. And if you think "Super Mario Bros. the Movie" is bad, try it in french. You will cry. But for the good movies there is no difference really. Even the voice dubbing is really good.(Star Wars, Star Trek, Matrix, Terminator, every Disney movies in existence and Princess Mononoke....God this one is gorgeous in french. There is a lot more of course, but no point making a list). Same for books and television shows. We had our share of harry Potter, Eragon, Twilight (yeah yeah DX), Sherlock Holmes, and a lot more (again, no point in making a list, they are all there).
As for cartoons...Duck tales, inspector gadget, TMNT, Transformers, X-men, Spiderman, Bugs Bunny and all his friends...AGAIN, no point in making a list. I will add that some of the animes we had, older or not, were really good. Inuyasha, pokemon, digimon (yeah yeah), Sailor Moon (I am not kidding, it was actually awesome AND not annoying)...those are the ones I remember.

However...there is, of course, the "bad ones" plaguing our minds. Things that are awesome in english (and/or japanese) and simply ruined by horrible french actors (sometimes, they're not even from Quebec. It is horrendous :S). Here is a few: Dragonball (Jesus), Hokuto No Ken (oh god WHY?!??!), most of the Arnold movies (except the really good ones like Terminator and Predator), every kung-fu movies in existence (please forgive me Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, we are not worthy!), Power Rangers...I will never forget DX

So really, the difference between Quebec and the rest of the world is pretty much a crappier government and a horrendous frenchy Dragon Ball. No matter, we had Transformers to teach us life lessons.

Back to video games. My question is "Why did the video game industry left us to rot like that?" Well, I can sort of answer myself. When I was younger I was one of the only ones who ever loved video games. Oh, there was other nerds already and the gaming industry was really working, but in the really young "french" kids department, not that much (and that is important. The market boomed with Nintendo stuff but it doesn't mean we kids understood it).  Console gaming was exclusively in english at that time, and no official support from magazines or anything else existed (except in english of course DX). There was television shows about it, but guess what. English. Good luck playing RPGs (expect if you bought games from France or something like that. I must say that some shops had games in french, but they were rare to find. That is how I got myself a copy of "Zelda: A Link To The Past" translated. Lucky find!).
When the N64 and the PS1 launched, Internet was there for most of the people. That means help for pretty much every games you couldn't understand. However by that point I was already starting to read in english and understood enough to progress by myself. I re-discovered older games I couldn't play before and became a REAL nerd. Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger are good examples.
To note, this is where I noticed people around my age CARING at all about gaming stuff. SuperSmash Bros. and Final Fantasy 7 were gigantic hits in Quebec. From my perspective (at least where I lived, you can give some feedback on that even if you're not french), this is when it really exploded. WANNABE SEPHIROTHS EVERYWHERE!!!

For PC gaming, that was another story. Most of the games (and applications) were available in a lot of languages, french included. This is how I discovered Diablo, Red Alert, Star Craft and my always beloved X-Com: UFO Defense, my favorite game of all time (and all of those at a young age. Diablo is so badass when you're younger than 12!). All of these games were available in french and me and my cousin Sam really got hooked on all of them.

Later in the history of gaming in french, voice acting happened. Oh boy. Games with actors were often subtitled in french, at the beginning at least, but as time went on they were fully translated (even Gigantic RPG games like Final Fantasy, Mass Effect and etc.). At that point my english understanding (reading and listening) was really good for my age, and I am sure it is the case for most of the french gamers in here. However I must say that **most** of the translated games are really good (in french at least). We're lucky to have great voice actors. As for Super Mario Galaxy....oh well, at least the characters ain't talking out loud (I know Mario never talks...but just imagine he does :D).

Anyway, this was a short fragment of my mind. Felt like talking about this. I hope you enjoyed this really random post (despite every comments concerning me being a french nerd) and feel free to add anything you want in the comment section!