I haven't written a new blog entry in a while now, so I thought in case someone was wondering, I'd give you a quick run-down of why I was so absent lately.

For the past 3 weeks now, I had again been in the army, kickin' it old-school. As always, it was hella boring, so we had to make the best out of it and have a lot of fun (and beer). Now, let me tell you that I normally don't drink at all (as a Haruhiist), but it's pretty hard to resist a little sip or two with your buddies after a long day of doing nothing. I don't really wanna bore you with all of that but I do wanna say we spend 2 days BBQ-ing on a hill and 3 days were spent with the 3 of our group sitting in our car, playing PSP games, all while maintaining our radio network (which comes down to checking every few ours if the switch was still set to 'on'.)

Going in, the best thing about those 3 weeks was knowing that at the end of it, there would be a demo of BioShock waiting for me on the PlayStation Store. Needless to say I already played through it a number of times and I'm still anticipating its release as if it was brand new, as I managed to avoid all crucial spoilers. The game still looks pretty damn great too, which goes to show how timeless great art design can be. Another game profiting from this fact is Eternal Sonata as it's still as charming as ever and the demo was quite a nice surprise. The most unexpected thing though was finding an automated email by the Japanese PlayStation Store in my mail account, with a promotional code attached. Not knowing what it was about (although I could've read the kana, but it didn't occur to me at the time) or why I got it, I typed in the code and sure enough it was a beta key for LittleBigPlanet.

That said, I didn't have too much time to spend on it yet, at least not as much as I'd like, because I've *had* to play Yakuza 2 (which I finished just a couple of hours ago.) Good game, but just like the original, it's at its best when you're not actually playing but watching the story unfold. Also, the final boss fight reminded me of MGS4's, which is funny because Yakuza 2 was released in Japan way before MGS4.

Oh yeah, another thing I forgot to mention was that I downloaded AngelLoveOnline from the Japanese PS Store the other day, a free-to-play MMO on the PS3. It's been fun trying to figure out how to play the game with everything in Japanese, but the lag makes it almost unplayable at times. I might go back to it when I find the time, but I guess I'll have to wait for Free Realms for my proper MMO fix.

Other than that, I've been pretty much out of the loop due to the lack of internet access and am just catching up right now.

Today, GiantBomb.com, the website from former GameSpot staffers Jeff Gerstmann, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella has officially blown up.

I've been following their project through podcasts and E3 coverage and of course I signed up immediately to see what they had planned. If you want to add me, go to my profile and click 'add to network'. I won't be as lenient with friend requests however as I learned here it just becomes unmanageable. Besides, MasterChief49 and SoLiD_SnAkE1989 don't ever say a word.

Fear not though if you don't want to join Giant Bomb. I plan on remaining about as active on GameSpot as I am now. I'll keep commenting on blogs if I have something to say, I'll check the forums on a regular basis and I'll keep stealing videos from youtube and upload them here.

That's it, peace out. Lolcat comes later.

(Yay, a new blog from me!)

As you can imagine, I too was keeping busy with Metal Gear Solid 4. Great game, by the way. Played it start to finish 4 times now. The 4th run was for the Big Boss emblem you get for completing the game within 5 hours with 0 alerts/kills/continues. I gotta say, this was one of the hardest, most frustrating experiences in a long time. At the final boss fight, I was close to tears of frustration and my controller barely survived the ordeal thanks to me coming to my senses just before throwing it at the tv.

Once done though, it feels great. Sure, it's just a game and I could've done something more meaningful in that time like finding a cure for cancer or something, but nonetheless, I feel like I've accomplished something. Thanks go to Gamefaqs user Hellcar (who should have posted his guide earlier so I would have gotten the solar gun before torturing myself during the chase sequence in act 3) as well as Youtube user Tyndis, especially for the smoke grenade tactics during said chase. Now, Sony, I think I've earned me my platinum trophy, so gimme!

(Sorry about the quality)

Update:

Now I got all 40 emblems. All that's left are the 30 ghosts I need to get on camera. I found a couple, but I'll wait until someone posts a complete list.