Micro Machines 2 Turbo Tournament

This game is faster than F-zero

Game no: 317
Genre: Racing
Platform: Genesis
Release date:1994



What is it about?
Micro racing around everyday places and items.

What I liked?
The choices of cars and tracks are surprisingly varied. Cars range from dragsters, formula one cars and dump trucks
There are a lot of different tracks that provides enough twists and turns. I especially love the tracks on the dining table.
Racing is a lot of fun if you get the layout of the track.

What I didn't like?
The race is extremely unforgiving. One wrong move and you are gone. The races gets harder and faster over time. Unless you have lightning like reflexes there is no chances in winning the race.
The cars also have very sensitive handling. One extra wrong turn can make you fall down a cliff which sucks because fundamentally the game does play well.
The tree house stage sucks. The helicopter is hard to control and the wind effects really makes racing difficult.

Status: Finish all the races

Fun Factor: This game is not that fun unless you know what is their track layout

Back from vacation

On Tuesday my wife say let’s go on vacation. So with minimal planning we manage to snag a nice 3 days 2 nights vacation at a Safari Park 3 hours drive from the city. The 300km drive was uneventful and boring. Once we arrived at 2:00pm on Tuesday we straight away went to the Wildlife park.

During January is usually off season for the hotel. The guest were less than 20 and most of the facility is operating on minimum capacity. While some must say that is boring to go to a hotel where there are no guest. I say that is like we rented the whole hotel to ourselves. We went to the safari tour and saw a lot of wild animals such as Lions, Tigers, Elephants. Most of them were alone and bored. Due to the heat or probably there is nothing much to do. At least the kids are having fun. We saw a couple of shows like the animal, bird, and wildlife show. At night we went to the Night Safari and saw a horrible rendition of the Indiana Jones show. Since there were no one, we were treated to touch the animals and get up close with the birds.

The next day we spend half a day playing archery, paintball, and ATV. I got to ride a horse and I tell you it’s not like Red Dead at all. It seems to be quite boring and my butt hurt. In the evening we went to the water parks. The kids played at the largest slide while and the wife played with my little one. My butt is still sore in landing from the slides.

Today we left at 10:30. And arrive at 2:00pm. My wife is on vacation withdrawal since she needs to work tomorrow and I am hurting the whole body. well at least this is part of the resolution of taking my family on a vacation this year. There is still 11 more months. A lot can happened.

Halo 3

Finish the fight

Game no: 316
Genre: FPS
Platform: Xbox One (Originally for Xbox 360)
Released Date: 2007 (Part of The Master Chief Collection)




What is it about?
The last chapter in the Halo trilogy. It all ends here

What I liked?
The machine gun is back.
There are new weapons like the ax machine, hammer (something)
New vehicles such as the chopper and the hornet. Old vehicles now handle better than before
The story has a twist ending at the end.
Vast stages that require to go from one end to the next
Augmented items like the bubble shield, regenerator and flare.
The ending is a throwback to Halo 1

What I didn't liked?
There are still no waypoints. You do get lost here from time
The shotgun is even more nerfed than the second game
The short moments where cortana is talking to you in your helmet really bothers with the pacing
Ending is not that great but its a good setup for Halo 4

Status: Finish the game saw the ending

Fun Factor: One of the great FPS of all time. Worth a playthrough

Lumines Remastered

Blocks blocks and more falling blocks.

Game no: 315
Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Released Date: 2018 (Original PSP version 2004)



What is it about?
The objective is to clear all 4 blocks until you can't clear no more.

What I liked?
Each theme gives you different blocks with different music. Some are slow while some are fast. They provide a different strategy for clearing the blocks
vs mode is quite fun.

What I didn't liked?
Circles patterns are so confusing. It can make you lose focus

Status: Cleared vs mode, 100 level blocks

Fun Factor: Is a good game to release your stress

F-Zero

This game is so extremely hard

Game no: 314
Genre: Racing
Platform: SNES
Release Date: 1990

 

What is it about?
Hover racing in the future.

What I liked?
Fast paced action
4 choices of ships with a lot of robot ships around
15 different tracks each with bomb obstacles, jumps and shortcuts

What I didn't liked?
One mistake on you're dead. This game can be finish in less than 45 minutes. But the difficulty curve means you spend constantly dying
There are no point systems so as long you are in the top three. You are good.

Status: Finish all the 3 courses

Fun Factor: A great short racing that is a good for pick up and play

Well that was unexpected

Today we went to my daughters friends house. I was in the dark since I thought it was just an innocent play date. It turns out my wife and her wife was trying to find out why the kids in the school  were in a ‘suicide pack’. They are hurting each other and laughing about it. So my daughters friend (B) is a confidant for her classmate who threatens to commit suicide. So in my opinion that this 12 year old girls is too young to handle stresses like this. It can drive you mad. In the meantime I was thankful that my daughter only cares about cartoons and wanting to play the switch. In a sense, me and my wife are actually good parents

I learn swimming today

Well today I am finally learning how to swim. What did I discover? Swimming is hard. Apparently my back stroke is not prefect so I can’t move forward. That sucks. Need to continue to prefect my strokes.

Columbiana

A very simple action movie



What is it about?
A girl family gets killed and 5 years later she seeks revenge

The Good
The action scene are quite entertaining. The heroine is like a ninja
The backstory is close to 30 mins of the whole movie

The Bad
The end scene was a let down. There were not to big a firefight and the final boss death were underwhelming
The off parts with the boyfriend didn't do it for me.
No training montage which sucks

The Ugly
Doesn't it hurt walking around without wearing shoes?
The computer stuff is too far fetch but I get it due to the time restriction of the movie.

After Credits: No

Verdict: It's a good popcorn movie. Nothing much too it

Halo 2 Anniversary Edition

My first completed game of 2019

Game no: 313
Genre: FPS
Platform: Xbox One
Release Date: 2014 (Original version release on 2004) [Part of the Master Chief Collection]



What is it about?
The continuation adventures of Master Chief and his mission to stop the Covenant 

What I liked?
Cut scenes are re-imagine with Xbox One graphics
The storyline is very interesting
Now you have missions where you play as the Arbiter. After the events of Halo, you need to prove yourself among  the covenant
Plasma sword can cut everyone with one swoop
Weapons selection is varied but I end up using the shotgun and plasma guns
Now single handed guns can be dual-wielded. Which gives double the firepower

What I didn't liked?
The game is still pretty confusing. You will end up sometimes lost figuring out where to go next. There are no way points or points of interest. So you need to follow the trail of dead bodies.
Gone is the heavy machine gun and they replace it with the small machine gun.
Basically you only play as the Chief for 7 missions and the rest you play as the Arbiter. So the Chief storyline is not flesh out this much this season
I can imagine in 2004 everyone who finish the game were extremely frustrated since the game doesn't end rather stop abruptly waiting another 3 years for Halo 3
Shotguns are nerfed

Status: Finish the campaign.

Fun Factor: Is a very fun game if you enjoy shooting. The story is also makes you wanting to find out what will happen next.

Destination Wedding

The first movie of the year and its a funny



What is it about?
Two strangers met on a trip to a destination wedding.

The Good
This movie is just Keanu and Winona talking to each other for 90 minutes.
The bather is amazingly funny and sometimes dry
There are a lot different scene where they interact

The Bad
Sometimes they talk for two long and miss the mark on what is funny

The Ugly
Keanu bad habit was driving me nuts

After credits: No

Verdict: Not worth watching at cinema. Its a good streaming movie

Year End Review 2018

My favorite time of the year looking back on what I did in 2018

2018 has come and gone. Lets see how did we do this year.

Games

This year I didn't manage to game that much. Life gets in the way I guess. Part of the year was focusing on my masters. This year try to play as much of quality games

Nintendo Switch: 8 (↔)
PS4: 8 (↑ 7)
PS2: 3 (↔)
Gamecube: 1 (↔)
iOS: 1 (↓ 1)
SNES: 3 (↓ 5)
PC: 2 (↔)
3DS: 1 (↔)
PS Vita: 1 (↓ 5)
PSP: 1 (↑ 1)
Xbox One: 4 (↔)

Platformer: 2 (↓ 15)
Other: 1 (↔)
Adventure: 2 (↔)
Action: 10 (↓ 36)
Fighting: 3 (↓ 11)
Puzzle: 3 (↓ 6)
Racing: 6 (↓ 2)
FPS : 3 (↑ 2)
Other: 1 (↔)
Board: 1 (↔)
Shooter: 1 (↓ 13)

Game Played : 33 (377) (↓ 87)
Finished Game : 31 (312) (↓ 64)

Spider-Man (2018) (300th Finished Game)

Game of the Year

There were a lot of games I've played. This year I am list my top 10 favorite games that I played for this year. 

10. Steamworld Dig 2

9. Super Metroid

8. Need for Speed (2015)

7. WRC World Rally Championship

6. Super Smash Bros Ultimate 

5. Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

4. God of War (2018)

3. Super Mario Odyssey

This game I spend close to 70 hours to collect all the moons. This is the best Mario game I've played in a long time.

2. Forza Horizon 4

This game is feels like your birthday since you are constant rewarded with something. This game really makes me happy.

1. Spider-Man (2018)

I am sucker for superhero games. Spider-Man is the only game that I wanted to play more of it. This was also the first game that I platinum. So this is my no 1 game of the year

Series

This year I've been watching a lot of best series of all time like thr sopranos and mad men.Most of my shows that I watch are on my phone when I have the time 
1403 shows  (↑ 362)

Memorable moments and shows

• The Sopranos and Mad Men are stellar shows
• Arrow was better than the Flash this year
• Black Mirror Season 

Movies

28 Movies for the year (↑ 1). With some that I watched on bluray.

Movies of the year

3. searching

2. Avengers Infinity War

1. Spider-man into the Spider-verse

Unrelated = 34 :)   (↑ 12)

Even More Unrelated = 146  (↓ 1)

NEW STUFF FOR 2017

1. GPD Win 2 (which I am using to write this review)

2. Iphone 8 Plus

GAMES SPEND FOR 2017

$1060.28 (↑ $768.27)

(UN)MEMORABLE MOMENTS FOR 2017

2018 has been the most challenging year for my whole family. Lets list down what happen

1. Masters was going great halfway and after that stagnant 
2. Wife is diagnosed with depressiion. There are some good days and there are some bad days
3. Didn't get a scholarship

MEMORABLE MOMENTS FOR 2017

1. Wife got her phd
2. We went to New Zealand and saw her graduation
3. Got a GPD Win 2. Best gaming device ever

2018 New Years Resolution

1. Third time is the charm... Lose 10 kg... By the time end of 2018 I am going to be 78kg (Still the same weight... I got to a point I was 93kg. Now back to 88kg)

2. Don't spend to much time gaming. Need to finish part of my masters (I did my proposal defense and pass. But now I think I want to quit)

3. Better a better person religiously and stop doing the even more unrelated. (Still working on that)

4. Go for at least 3 vacations with the family. (Just went to 1 but it was an epic 11 day vacation)

5. Get the GPD Win 2 (Mission complete. Was the first 1000 backer on Indiegogo)

2019 New Years Resolution

1. Lose at least 10kg before my best friends wedding

2. Play games and watch tv rather than do the unrelated thing as much as possible

3. Go for 3 holidays with family

4. Mandarin Hotel for 2019

5. Save 15000 by December