From last time where I left off, I did make some way into disc 1 and seem to be on track to complete this resolution.  This past month, is no different.  I went all old-school gamer boy to get my goal, my resolution, my bane of my gamer existence to be completed.  In fact, I think I went a little too gamer boy on this past month.  It was almost every waking moment that I had that wasn't tied into work and family time I was on my PS3 playing VII.

As far as progress has went, I was certain that I would be finished with the game by June.  But I wanted to saver this moment and by the end of the month I knew that I should ween myself back to take in all that need to be taken in.  So let me just start that I didn't think I would make it to disc 2 so soon.  But before I go any further, let me just start from where I left off.

So onward towards the Nibelhelm's Mako reactor in which what did most people would have expected to happen would be a Cloud freak-out.  But alas, it wasn't so.  Just a bunch of mid level monster bosses and a tad mention about Sephiroth.  But since the game must go on, we climb down on the other end of the great mountains and find ourselves a new plain of field to level up (and man was there some level upping being done, mostly because I was lost.)  Our party finally find their way to Rocket Town.

Why is it called Rocket Town you might ask?!?  Maybe it's because of the huge friggin' piece of 'failure to launch' sticking up like a sore pixelated thumb.  That's my guess.  From here you'll get your next member of our entourage, Cid.  We finally meet up with the Cid of the game, and as far as Cid's go in the Final Fantasy universe, this one is one of my favorites.  He's a formal pilot that got screwed by Shin-Ra when they scrapped the space program for more capitalistic agendas.  And now fat bastard Palmer is trying to steal his plane to chase Sephiroth in some other continent (obviously.)  So you kick his ass, try to take off in the plane but it gets shot down and is only a glorified water ski that can only go in shallow land.  Queue up the Final Fantasy fanfare music we have a new mode of transportation.

So now we go to what is needed to go to which is the Temple of the Ancients which is the other major plot point.  But just before that I realize that I am being tailed by some annoying teenage ninja (as if any other character in the Final Fantasy series isn't normally annoying.)  I beat her, she joins my team, and we are introduced to Yuffie.  And because I know what's gonna happen if I continue to go to the Temple, I decide to go to her homeplace, Wutai.  I get there, because why the hell not, let's continue with other people's storylines.  Big surprise, it bites me in the ass and the little bitch stole all my materia.  And to make it worse, she gets herself kidnapped with my materia by the Turks.  I'm almost like, kill the kid, but I want my materia.  Thankfully they're on holiday and don't want to get their hands dirty.  Let her go and my materia's a mess.  I then decided to go back to Nibelhelm to get Vincent but I made a blank at that time.

So I decide to go en route to the Temple, where I then find out the whole damn game up to this point is to obtain some powerful stuff called Black Materia.  Apparently it has the power to destroy the world by unleashing a giant meteor and causing the Ancients to heal the earth and eventually embody someone to make their second coming into the planet.  Which makes me think why would anyone want to rule the world if they're the only one in it; taking the master of their own domain thing too seriously I think.  So to keep things going, the team tries to get to get it before Sephiroth does.  But the Temple requires a sacrifice, so Cait Sith decides to let himself be it.  The team says, let the back stabbing double agent sunnuvabitch take the bullet.  And the team does the biggest mistake ever and let their schizophrenic leader take the materia.  Two seconds later, Sephiroth swoop's in and convinces Cloud to give it to him.  It makes me sick on how stupid this "Hero" is.  Oh, and along the way, Aeris leaves the party to go all Dog the Bounty Hunter and get Sephiroth.

We head north because, well, that's the only untreked placein the game.  We find the place that is called the City of the Ancients.  Man, these Ancients really get around.  This is where we finally catch up with Aeris as she is ready to return to the planet, whether she wants to or not.  Yup, THE BIG KILL SCENE where Sephiroth falls from the sky and impales our heroine as she releases her white materia into the pool.  We then lay her down to rest and end Disc One.

Disc Two starts with us making way further north to some snow resort where there has been a "Man in a Black Coat" sighting and they want to go down and get them in this snow maze.  After getting lost a couple of times, I finally able to find myself to get to the next place in the journey and fight another boss.  That leads me into a crater from the last Meteor attempt years ago.  We find a bunch of Sephiroth's oompa-loompa's making their way to the center and sacrificing themselves to give him, well, as far as I know, a god-complex boner.  No, it's to summon what they call Weapon, it's a beast that the planet created to protect it from harm, no matter what the cost is.  Of course I'm playing the American version of the game and there's three Weapons (more on that in future posts.)  The team makes it to him and then Sephiroth pulls some crazy jedi mind trick and tells Cloud that he's just a failed experiment and wasn't meant to be.  Hojo (the crazy Shin-Ra scientist guy), Scarlett, and the Turks come in and pretty much comfirms that Cloud was a failed experiment.  He finally realize that he's a threat to the team and abandons them to be Sephiroth's bitch in his hibernation status.

Oh, and the team gets captured and is prepped for execution, fan-fuckin'-tastic.  Well, Weapon comes and causes havoc where the team is being held for execution by Shin-Ra and it causes mass confusion and hysteria.  The party escapes and hijack's one of their airships.  And that's just about as far as I gotten in January.

I almost felt bad that I went this far and it's only been a month into it.  But keeping in mind that this game is a real pain in the ass to complete, it was worth getting as far as I did.  We'll see how February pans out and see what comes in next month's update.  Until next time...

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

BootLeG Year in Review

As another year near its end and a lot of stuff happened to say the least.  There have been much stuff happening around the world and, well, if you want some perspective for that, you could visit some other kind of credible place.  But for now, I'm just gonna place some of the things that I think were important to me and what impacted my blog.  So here's a year in review of the blog that just is for 2011.  Just for the record, it's not like I don't pay attention to current events and what not, it's just that it's my blog and I want to give myself a little praise.


First off, it was a good year in the fact that I try to be as proactive as posting as frequently as possible.  I honestly and earnestly made the valiant effort of doing a once-a-week blog here.  And for the most part (obviously some weeks were a little off because of scheduling and holidays) I did my part.  For 2012, I hope to continue with that effort and keep the caliber of the content at least at the level that it is now, but always trying to expand on it.  Which brings me to my next point.  I wanted to expand on more of a video aspect.  This also comes across as a time and scheduling constraints that I had.  Honestly, time management is something I still need to work on.  Hence why I'm gonna try my damnedest on 2012 to put up more video content.  Let's not forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel to see all the crap that I'd put up so far.


As far as gaming is concerned, it was all well for me finally experiencing the epic awesomeness of all that is the PS3.  Sure it's about 4 years too late, but still, it's badass.  The power of blu-ray and all the games I've played so far, it's gonna set me up for one helluva new year.  It's the main driving force for me to get back on what I stated for my 2012 resolution of playing Final Fantasy VII and complete it by the end of 2012.  It's just that friggin' awesome.  I'm in love with it, it's the only acceptable mistress that the wifie will allow me to have.


Music related, it's just been me listening and enjoying.  Although the urge to play have been great, I've been learning little by little how to play my 12-string acoustic guitar and also thinking of new instrumental accompaniments that also will help with my resolution of writing a new song a month.  So it's all good that I've been just laying it low, and feeling refresh for everyone.  Once again, it'll be a better year next year for that.


As far as other stuff, well, with the work that I'm still putting on the eventual transformation to a new design for the blog, it was pretty laid back.  I promise you, look forward to 2012.  Adios 2011, it's time had left us to a pretty damn good year and set for better times for the next year.  So I leave you with a line from of course one of my favorite bands, doubleDrive; "Give us some confetti here we'll have us a better year"  Hot damn it's almost 2012, see ya next year (or Tuesday, whatever comes first...)

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

Death to Farmville

I believe you all know my stance of flash games by now...  They are meant to be enjoyed at short spurts to pass the time between one task to another or a quick release from reality.  But once it becomes an empire where it requires your undying allegiance to it to just continue and maintain your virtual world, that's when it becomes more of an obsession and even worse, an epidemic to the masses.  And now, Zynga's Farmville finally pushed me to the point where the only acceptable place for it is the scenic underworld of the corner of Hellfire and Brimstone.  This I present to everyone is another installment of my Death To series; Death To Farmville...

(Special thanks to Jack Brimstone for the kick-ass illustration.)

Now, this isn't an attack on Zynga itself, I'm a big fan of some of their products.  I played Zynga Poker and Mafia Wars once upon a time prior to Facebook being nothing more than a social hub of flash games as well as some of their mobile fares with their "With Friends" line of games.  Which you can find me and start up a game with my twitter @BootLeGsampler, but that is just a testament to what they have done.  But none of which compare to what they have done with the onslaught of idiocracy that is Farmville.  So what's wrong with Farmville, what isn't wrong with it is the shorter answer.  But I'll try my damnedest to explain why I'm laying down the law and sentencing Death To Farmville.


If you don't already know I'm totally anti-gaming on Facebook, it's meant for networking and socializing, plain and simple.  Banter and contacts, that's what I see it as.  And from the last time I check watching The Social Network, they did not mention crap about games.  I was tolerable about the games and all.  I tried it, sure I was suckered in, but I blame the wifie on that.  It was just a thing I did to help with the wifie  But I was soon to notice that it was just a tedious load of crap that sucked more of my time that needed to be wasted.  It started innocently as plant some potatoes, pick some apples from some trees, and maybe milk a cow or two.  That's it, not much more to it.  Maybe, and just MAYBE, you would help a friend or two with their farm.  But then, like all things Zynga, it got friggin' ridiculous.


I was a fan of Mafia Wars too, and I weened myself out of it when they started introducing different missions and locations for quests and all.  It loss a lock of it's luster and became weak in my opinion and flooded with a bunch of bots and cheaters trying to rack up a bunch of points for what, nothing more than notoriety from Zynga at best.  Fast forward the couple of years since and all of the popularity of people on Facebook just for the fact of playing a game, it's overbearing and stupid.  Now Farmville just introduced it's third world of playing, it has quests among quests of doing, and it's ridiculously stupid on how much time it takes to maintain all of the stuff it presents to you.  Seriously, it's an old, blue haired ladies version of WoW, and I've already did a Death To about that earlier.  It is too damn much work and maintence to keep up with all the crap.  I knew of people that spend so much time and effort in the game that it became practically a second job for them with all the man-hours they did.  And let's not forget the factor that some resources you have to pay to complete.  You might not have enough of one thing and needing to buy it from them, thus feeding into the monopoly of flash games that is Zynga. Okay, so this post did become somewhat of an attack on Zynga, but not fully, I'm still focusing on the precedence of it being that Farmville will suck you of your time, money, and eventually your soul.

(Thank to The Oatmeal for providing such kick-ass content, really, you should be here more than you're on Farmville people.)

But I digress, I mean if you really don't have anything else to do, and you don't have any means of communicating with anyone in the world, and all the time in the world to do nothing but click on a mouse and burn though your paypal, sure, go for it.  But keep in mind, there are better addictions, like gambling, drinking, or interacting with a healthy relationship with actual people. But if you plan on going on with this abysmal existence, I suggest you pick up this...

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

The purpose of the Gaming Con

This is where I try to separate the fan boy inside of me from the critic and present the actual reason why we have them. Keyword in that sentence is TRY. Just in time for E3, right?! The thing about them is that it generates excitement from everyone; from people in the gaming industry to fanboys to media outlets a plenty. It's a orgy of bright lights, loud noises, and cos-players. No matter how it's diced, I love it. But in the end, what is it all about? Here's my feeble attempt to make something out of it. Now to make justice, there are multiple cons for multiple purposes. And to give them all justice I'll just have to generalize then as best as I can. Of course I'm gonna give some examples of each generalization but it won't be of each con. That's just too damn much. 

There's really two types of cons to consider, the ones that are for people in the industry to showcase their wares, and the ones that are for the fans that truly appreciate the work done. Guess which one I'm more in favor of. Let's get the industry con under wraps first. In essence it's core is for those who are within the industry to showcase their new wares to their peers and see among them is top dog. This is where CES and the likes are more prominent in that aspect. More the suit and tie aspect of the presenters and the viewers. The only flashy stuff in view is mainly the products and maybe some showgirls to model in front to draw the crowd. Ok, that I like... But as far as it's intentions I respect it. Their good in the aspect of getting to the root of why were all there ogling over all the shiny objects and pretty colors. That was what E3 was in it's infancy and it still retains such in their press conferences and product debuts for reviewers and analysts in the industry. But once you get to the showroom floor, it's a whole other story. 

Now here's where I get my shit-eating grin on my face (and have a hard time getting rid of it). The Fan-Cons. They are what we the general public are able to attend (after the cost of admission) and have fun being fanboys. It's a gamer-orgasm taken form. Full of people wanting to see the next big thing and willing to wait in lines for hours to do such. It's where situations like LAN parties might engulf the patrons and cos-players are the beautiful people. Events like PAX, TooManyGames, and the open showroom floor of E3 are prime examples of such. It's where the nerdy and the chic are married into one helluva experience. 

Now to make sense of how can the two coexist. Without the public wanting to display their allegiance to the developers games there wouldn't be games for us to have. And trust me we wouldn't want another 1983 again would we?!? But the whole point of conventions are to be among peers to compare their preverbal penis sizes (and nine out of ten Nintendo comes out on top; no pun intended if you read into that too much like I did). It's kinda hard to conduct business when you have hundreds of lunatic fans breathing on your shoulders. Thankfully conventions like the Tokyo Game Show and E3 are here, they're the closest things we have to marry them together. I just wish they're were more of them, but then again they wouldn't be as special. And I'm pretty damn glad to have them that way. It's like Christmas in June for us gamers. As for PAX's and the CES's, I'll respect your separation and enjoy the presences of them in their own rights.

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

P.S.  Look out for the next post and tweets on my thoughts on E3 2011.