What an exciting week. I was given an interesting opportunity at work the other day. You see, there is this thing called the Digital Media Academy that apparently happens every summer and comes to our labs for it. It is basically week long professional training courses on things such as video editing, web design/publishing, 3D modeling and game design, and similar media related topics. Since they will be using our labs, our department gets 4 free passes to any courses. The full-time staff had first crack at the tickets, but none of them showed any interest, so my manager thought it'd be great for the Customer Service team to use the tickets. Luckily for me, I am in the Customer Service team. So, in two weeks I will be attending the course for 3D Studio Max which will cover 3D modeling and animation along with some game design. If that wasn't cool enough, I get to attend the course on the clock, so basically I will be getting paid to learn 3DS Max and not go to work for a week. How awesome is that? On top of that, the DMA folks will be hiring some of us to work for them at nights operating the labs. I'm gonna try for that so I can make a little extra cash and maybe learn some more cool stuff in the process. All in all it sounds like a sweet deal, especially considering I get a free pass, and normal tuition is $895. That's what I call sweet action. I can't wait!
I spent almost 2 days at Minh's playing his Xbox and watching him install a 120 gig hard drive into it and dl games for it. It was a ton of fun despite the long, grueling process of transferring the games onto the Xbox's hard drive. We played a bunch of games, namely Ninja Turtles, Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions, GTA, Tenchu: Return from Darkness, Sonic Superheroes, and Ninja Gaiden. It completely rekindled my interest in video games. Ever since I started college, I kinda quit playing video games, except for the brief period I played my Dreamcast with Soul Calibur and Capcom vs SNK. Aside from that, I never seriously played any game until Thursday and Friday night. I guess I finally saw what I had been missing. So, Saturday night I went out and bought an Xbox along with DoA3, Soul Calibur 2, Ninja Gaiden, and it came with a crappy racing game called Midtown Madness 3 (It's no wonder why it was free). I've always been a big fan of the Soul Calibur/Blade series and the DoA series, but I have to say if it wasn't for Ninja Gaiden, I probably would have never gotten back into video games. It has to be one of the coolest games I've played in a long time and one of the best looking games I've ever seen. As an added bonus, you can unlock the NES Ninja Gaiden games (I through III) by performing certain tasks. I've spent pretty much my entire weekend playing Xbox nonstop like I used to back in the day. My hands are out of shape though. They can't handle the furious button mashing like they used to. :( I'm eventually gonna get Minh to mod my Xbox too for added fun, but for the time being I have plenty of games to keep me busy. I highly recommend playing Ninja Gaiden, or at least coming to my place to see it. Oh man it's so awesome.
Speaking of awesome, earlier I took a break from Xbox to do a little web browsing and chatting, but ended up watching the movie DareDevil. Talk about an awesome movie, and by awesome I mean not awesome at all. It was complete garbage. I only saw about 75% of it, but that portion was lame enough to make me not want to see what I missed. Thanks (free) HBO for another winner. Speaking of 75%, I dl'ed Badder Santa the other day and watched that. Both discs didn't burn correctly, so I only saw about 75% of each disc, however the parts I did see were hilarious, almost enough to make me want to get the dvd. I just might do that. That movie is so messed up, it's great. Go check it out. I give it 27 thumbs up.
I hope everyone had a fun 4th of July. I know I did playing Xbox all day. The only fireworks I saw were the ones I saw as I was driving to Jack in the Box to get food. Come to think of it, I've been eating at Jack in the Box every 4th of July for the past 3 or 4 years. Weird.
Well, as much as I'd like to go turn on the Xbox for some more Soul Calibur 2, I have to get to sleep. I have to go to work tomorrow, even though pretty much everyone else is off. Bah. Thankfully my class is cancelled, so maybe I can come home between my shifts and play a little. hehehe.
Did you also get the add-on disk for DOA 3, where you can get more costumes? Also, how is Ninja Gaiden?
At least Spawn isn't as cheap as Link in Calibur 2. I've been planning to get an Xbox for quite some time now, but I'm waiting for a price drop.
Hmm, I haven't heard of that add-on disc, but now I'm very interested. What is it? DoA Extreme or whatever it's called is coming out soon I think. I don't know much about it except that it's like DoA2 but with multiplayer (online) capabilities or something.
Ninja Gaiden is totally awesome and one of the best games I've played in a very long time. You should come by sometime to check it out. :)
Spawn is really cool in SC2. He looks cool and has some good moves. It's too bad he doesn't have his cape though. Maybe it's on an alternate costume though, dunno. I haven't finished Weapon Master mode yet, and of course Taki will be the first character I get everything for anyway.
I was gonna wait for a price drop for the xbox, like I did with the Dreamcast a while back ($80), but after playing Ninja Gaiden and to a lesser extent, Tenchu, I absolutely had to have one now. I'm glad I got one.
The add-on disk just gives you an extended intro and more costumes like Bayman's scuba gear and maybe Lei Fang's gim..er dominatrix outfit. I think you can find the disk at Toys R Us or best buys. Its called the exhibition disk vol. 1. Thats all I know about it.
...my classes weren't cancelled. Of course, one of my profs was British and the other Russian. I guess it was a lost cause.
Hehe I'm WAYYY ahead of your bro. I bought Bad Santa the day it came out. Haha I saw it at Alamo w/ Beca last Christmas and it was so fizzucked up I knew I had to get it when it came out.
Have you seen Butterfly Effect yet? I bought that the other day as well. Damn that's a bad ass movie.