My Memories of little Noodle

This just a little tribute to a friend of mine…

This here is my little written story about a girl I know, I forget her name so let’s just call her Noodle for now (like the female member of the Gorillaz). I remember when I met her like it was yesterday. Back when I used to work at my old college, in the month of February while on visit to a museum I was hanging around with some of my student friends and one of them introduced me Noodle and from that moment I knew there was something special about her. There seemed to be a mysterious aura coming from her that made me very interested in her. I was careful to make a good first impression on her so when I drew a picture of my friend and Noodle when I was bored and she approved, I thought things may just work out. Little did I know that after that day I made a special friend who I honestly couldn’t live without.

As time went by through my friends I got to know her and found out how much we had in common, from music interests to our love for Pokémon and other video games and more interestingly she was a video editor and her skills were awesome so I indirectly did a bit of networking and found a new partner for future projects. I also learnt about her fab personality, she’s a very laid back, happy-go-lucky and cool person to hang around and very cute too, there was no negatives to her at all. As we moved from the spring to the summer our friendship seemed to expand and get ever stronger and we even talked serious topics and things in each other’s lives and I’m sure our bond became stronger because of it. It was funny how we found ourselves hanging in college time, when she was bored or needed a classroom to hang in she’d just swing by and do whatever, she really was the best kind of person to hang with whenever I was bored or lonely.

So with the summer in full swing we eventually got to hang outside of college and learn more about each other and go to the cinema and play video games, you know all that good stuff that friends get to do. And I can honestly say that it was the most fun I’d had for a good few summers. It was just beautiful to know I had a new friend who was right up the road from my house who I could hang with. Unfortunately university came calling and it made me very sad to leave her back in my home town to chase after my dream in the world of education. Though some things are unavoidable.

But one could ask why am I talking about all of these memories with this one person? Well I am talking about her because I think she is amazing, Noodle is an incredible person and the world needs to know about her. Noodle is every bit a cute and cuddly as teddy bear, her personality is wonderful, full of colour and so many times her little tendencies make me say “Awwwwww!” She makes me laugh and she is very pretty too. I can honestly say that she one of the best people I have ever met in live, when I’m not around her I miss her like hell and when I meet her I get stupidly happy because that’s the kind of person she is, she brings happiness to people. I can honestly say that I’ve fallen for her and I’d gladly do it all over again because she’s the best. After all this talk about her I’ve just remembered her name, it is Louise, though I prefer to call her Noodle at this point in time. If you ever get to meet Noodle giver a high-five or hug her or just say hi, you won’t regret it, I know I haven’t.

Everyone needs a Noodle in their lives and I’m glad to have mine, I love her to bits. I wonder if she’ll ever read this, to be honest I think she knows about all of this stuff I’ve wrote about her already, but I thought I’d do it again just to serve as a reminder.

Wherever you are Noodle this goes out to you!! 😀

Thanks for reading people 🙂

 

Rant 03: I Need Sleep!

Howdy ladies and gents, as it says in the title of this blog post I really need sleep and I need it severely. Sure one would say, “Just got to sleep now” or “Go to bed earlier the night”, however there a problems with both those sayings. Firstly I’m one of those type of people who gets up in the morning and once I’m up I can never go back to sleep/don’t like to go back to sleep, plus once I’ve done a lot (like walk to and from university) then I really can’t be arsed to go back to sleep unless it’s for a power nap and that’s normally in the afternoon/evening time on days where nothing happens.

That was how I felt in class today…

And the second problem is that I can’t go to bed early because my body doesn’t register in that way. I mean I’ve tried on a good few occasions but in the end it never works. Normally I’ll be awake for an hour or two just to get into the right groove and then fall asleep or I just stay up late to stupid hours of the morning and I’m completely shattered when  do go to be. Then when I wake up I’m physically destroyed and in no mood to get up on a Monday morning (or most mornings where uni’s involved). So in the end I cannot win with Monday’s so I’ve given up and I’m just hoping for the best really when I go to bed on Sunday night.

Very few times since I’ve come to uni because a good night of sleep. Most times I’m just like this picture above.

In the end I’ve come to the conclusion that I hate Mondays because I am up so early, never get a good night’s sleep and my lesson’s normally aren’t the kind of thing I want to be doing after I’ve gotten up and am a bit grouchy. Funny thing about this post was that it originally wasn’t meant to be a rant, but then it sort of escalated into one, so hell let this be the third in the installment of rants here on this blog!

Until the next time people, thanks for reading and peace out! 🙂

 

The Game Has Changed

Just like the name of the song by Daft Punk from the Tron: Legacy Soundtrack, I see that the game which I call my life has changed. You see I’ve been living in Sheffield now for just under 2 months and have taken in a lot of different things and experienced many aspects of life in this new city like university, bonding with me new flatmates, leaving me family and friends back home, adjusting to a bigger location, taking in the ridiculously extreme nightlife and having to establish my whole identity all over again. It’s a lot to do and really does impact the way in which you operate in your daily life.

Trying to establish my identity was a very different experience after I arrived here in Sheffield.

The cool thing that I’ve experienced while being here is the level of freedom, compared to being back home where most things felt restricted and weighed down by some form of invisible gravity. Sheffield feels weightless, like you could walk on air. I love it. Being in uni feels fresh and exciting, the course, the students, heck even the building of Sheffield Hallam itself is awesome and represents so much promise for the future. But what’s probably more impressive is the nightlife, I know uni is more about the educational side of things, but from my first 3 weeks here it was clear that the nights out were not only miles ahead of anything I got back home, but they even outshone the course I’m on. I guess compared to my home, Sheffield is stupidly massive and on my first night out I went to West Street, and was totally freaking out with all of the possibilities that could be created. Then take into account that my student accommodation is one of the most mental places I’ve ever been in, people always making noise, parties always going on, people always going out and it has a lively atmosphere. Its one heck of an introduction to university lifestyle. And it was that initial feeling, that feeling of fresh new experiences that made me so happy. I loved my life, it was like getting to start over with new people and doing things that I loved but on a whole new scale!

Unfortunately this is very true.

However nothing lasts forever especially when it comes to new experiences, eventually the people in the accommodation started to slow down and the pre-parties started to die down and that initial spark for the first time started to flicker. During week 4-6 me and my flatmates found regular places to go and found ourselves going out randomly just to kill time because we were bored or we just felt like it and surprisingly enough those nights were pretty darn interesting, sometimes even fun and memorable. Although from there into week 7 (last week) things started get really messy, sometimes the clubbing went from being okay-ish to downright awful with questionable music, dodgy company and a bad atmosphere normally being the problems that stopped us from having fun. It seemed that when we started going out with no plan, things just seemed to work themselves out, but it wasn’t always good and in recent times there has been a steady decline at 2 of our regular clubs that’s lead my flatmates and I to believe that we have to try out some new locations.

Though hope is not lost, because in my 8th week (this week) I have seen a glimmer of hope as the Monday night just past in one of our regular clubs we happened to meet one of our mates from uni and we got introduced to his mates and we all went crazy. It was madness and there was a level of happiness in the air that was undeniable and it totally changed up the night completely. Even the playlist held up pretty well and I was having epic fun for the first time in ages. And the fun didn’t stop there. Me and my good flatmate Craig attended a friend’s house party for his birthday. After a gaming session at our uni games society we headed up with a good few regular people, and honestly the night was amazing. We went up to a secluded location and went to our mate’s house, but since there were too many people inside his house we moved to their common room. And so the night started out okay, people chatting and drinking, you know the basic stuff while the main birthday man constantly disappearing and being on the move. However after a while things just changed and then the party completely descended into the kind of awesome chaos that can only be shared with good friends at a good house party. I won’t go into details but needless to say it was pretty crazy yo 😀

House parties do bring out that awesome party feeling!

Another interesting thing is that while me and my flatmates have been out partying together, we’ve never done anything social-wise like go to the cinema, have lunch together, you know just hang out. Besides the times we’ve chilled in the flat together, gone shopping in town or chilled with the gaming society, as a cohesive unit we’ve never just spent our time doing things regular friends do and it’s a darn shame. Don’t get me wrong, even without those social activities we’ve bonded fairly well, but in the 6th to 8th week period we had come to the conclusion that we don’t hang out as much as we should do as a group. So while we don’t have the money to tackle that venture yet, we said that we’d definitely have to put some time aside for those kinds of activities to build even stronger bonds between us.

So at this current point in time me and the guys are chilling out from all of the usual amount of partying we do so that we can be financially safe until the next big event at the end of this year which should be mental. Hopefully nights like Wednesday just gone aren’t going to be too far apart and I’ll still be able to have fun and bond with my flatmates for many nights out to come!

 

Sonic Generations Review

Okay so the time has come, after months and months and months of waiting I finally have played and properly experienced Sonic Generations, so what is my verdict?… It’s bloody awesome!

Sonic Generations happens to be a love letter of a game for fans of the series, highlighting all of Sonic’s big moments in gaming from the early days on the Sega Mega Drive to the here and now on the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It’s a game that’s full of nostalgia from not only the levels, but also in the cut scenes and use of music in the challenge missions, it’s like looking through an old photo album remembering and celebrating what you love in life, in this case it’s Sonic. The game isn’t perfect however, it has its problems here and there, but there is so much awesomeness in the game, it outweighs the bad by miles and while I can’t say it’s the best Sonic game ever, it makes a pretty damn good effort and I was left smiling.

Now before I go in-depth, let just say that this review is purely based on my impressions of the game after completing it and they are subject to change possible over the next fortnight, plus this is my opinion not only as gamer but as a loyal Sonic fan so don’t be hating, thanks 😀 Alrighty let’s do this thing!

Story

So the story of Sonic Generations is a simple one, one day Sonic and his friends are celebrating his birthday when a mysterious dark entity shows up and creates holes in time, sucking up everybody into different dimensions and tearing time apart. Sonic then finds himself in a white dimension where everything is lifeless and lacking in colour. And so as he travels through the different worlds, he happens to restore colour to those worlds, find his friends along the way and even run into his former self, and eventually discovers who is behind the whole time collapse in the first place.

Overall the story was alright, though there was some questionable voice acting (Amy!), some poor dialogue for characters to say, a general lack of cut scenes and a story not as big as Sonic’s previous two outings (Sonic Unleashed & Sonic Colours). But it’s an interesting and funny little tale that really reflects on the past in a great way and there are several moments of joy and laugher to be found, I did find myself smiling and laughing a lot throughout my playthrough. So in short I believe any Sonic fan shall get a kick out of this.

Gameplay

But enough about the story, what you really want to hear about is gameplay, you want to know how good or bad it is don’t you? Well I can safely day that it’s good, sometimes it’s absolutely amazing and sometimes a tad frustrating, but it really does depend on which Sonic you’re playing as at the time. So what I’m going to do now is describe my opinions of both Sonic’s taking into account, gameplay, handling, level design, music and difficulty.

With Classic Sonic you are getting classic 2D gameplay reinvented with a 3D graphical makeover rendered in HD and the gameplay result is an incredible one. This is Sonic from 1992, from his days in Sonic 2 with a few new features here and there. Playing as Sonic in 2D hasn’t felt this good in like forever, not since the Megadrive days have I felt that true sense of speed you get when you the Spin Dash downhill and feel the momentum carry you along. It’s an amazing feeling realised in this game. Long before this game had come out the most important factor on everybody’s minds was the physics, they had to be solid or this game would fail. Luckily Classic Sonic’s physics are up to scratch, they are miles ahead of Sonic 4 and feel about as close as you’re going to get to the originals in a 3D game format. Everything feels great from jumping, the speed and acceleration, my goodness it’s all just lovely. However the physics aren’t perfect, but they’re as close as we’re going to get for now. Though fans of the Megadrive titles who really played Sonic to death will notice the difference especially when you play Sonic 1 in Generations and see how different the Megadrive version is from its latest incarnation. Also unless you charge the Spin Dash when immobile, when you try to curl up into a ball while running, you are still slower than when you are running at top speed which is still kind of annoying. For me it took some time to adjust to the fact that the Spin Dash was now mapped to one button, but after a while it becomes second nature.

When it comes to level design Classic Sonic is totally in full-effect, his levels are nostalgic, well-crafted and are just a blast to play. The balance between speed and platforming is done well here as well as enemy placement too and thanks to the multiple pathways one can always find different routes and create interesting speed-runs too. Now when it comes to acts in specific obviously Green Hill Zone comes to mind and it really is the best level in the game, it can be played over and over and never get boring. The reworked version of the Chemical Plant Zone kicks ass as well with the look and feel being preserved well and feeling totally similar to the original. But I think Classic Sonic really comes alive when he tackles the Dreamcast and Modern Era levels, with Speed Highway, City Escape and Crisis City being some of the games highlights in my opinion. When it comes to difficulty I think it’s fair to say that it’s your standard Sonic game affair, starts out easy and progresses as you go along, though some levels do have some harsh areas, Sky Sanctuary is a tad unforgiving, Crisis City as much as I like it had me dying a good number of times, the level design of Seaside Hill was very questionable and I wasn’t too keen on it either. But those are just nitpicking points. In the end Classic Sonic works and it kicks so much ass to be playing as him when you find your feet, you feel invincible and I feel that the classic levels sort of outshine the modern ones because they are well-balanced and have a massive nostalgic factor that one can’t ignore.

Now that I’ve talked so much about Classic Sonic, you’re probably expecting me to say that Modern Sonic sucked or was very terrible. While I’m not, its pretty much the opposite, Modern Sonic is incredible and there is a great sense of speed and adrenaline once get when playing as him. Even though a lot of his levels require a lot of boosting and homing attacks, it does pay off as the game has been designed around those factors of speed, platforming and technique and it comes together in a spectacular fashion. When it comes to handling Modern Sonic those who have played Sonic Unleashed will feel right at home here, the same could be said for those who have played Sonic Colours too. The homing attack is tight and responsive (at least 90% of the time), the trick system works like a charm becoming very addictive and blasting around at breakneck speeds in using the boost feels incredibly satisfying. The difficulty of Modern Sonic comes across as fair at times, then switching to being unruly, to then being just downright unfair.

If you’re not too careful, towards the latter half of the levels (mainly in the Modern Era) is where things start to become frustrating very fast and then its cruel death after cruel death. Though if you choose to persevere and refine your skills then the levels do become a blast to play. When it comes to level design Modern Sonic’s levels have platforming sections that feel well put together, better enemy placement and has a good sense of speed too. And depending on what moves you use during levels you can chain them together and move through levels faster while looking cool at the same time. However the later levels in the game are very questionable in content and they suffer from some familiar problems that Sonic has faced in Sonic Unleashed, Colours and the Rush games like bad enemy placement, questionable platforming areas, strange level design and the all too common pitfalls. The places I had issues in were a little bit of Seaside Hill and more so with Crisis City, Rooftop Run and Planet Wisp (funny how I liked the latter two levels before in their previous games and now not so much in Generations.). They were just lengthy, unforgiving and left little room for error and its surprising how Sonic Colours seemed to write some of the wrongs in the gameplay department and yet this game felt like a step backwards, probably due to lack of innovation or inventive gameplay. The best levels with Modern Sonic are easily Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone, Speed Highway and City Escape.

Now in the game both Sonic’s will have to fight main bosses from their pasts, some of which is fun and some of which is confusing and hard to figure out. But the one thing that all of these bosses share in common is their length… The battles are too damn short, hit them around 4 or 5 times and bang! It’s over and you’re left thinking “Is that it?” Yes, all bosses in this game once you figure out how to beat them can be destroyed in a matter of minutes in a very anti-climactic way. Plus none of them offer any real challenge as they all have a simple method of destruction. However the last boss in the game I have to say is one of the worst bosses in Sonic history, it is long, tedious and a right pain in the ass.

Presentation

Now when it comes to presentation Sonic Generations definitely doesn’t disappoint there. Graphically speaking the game looks wonderful, its sharp, colourful and just oozing with character and charm. The game’s graphical highlights is seeing all of the classic Megadrive levels redesigned and updated, they feel so alive and there are so many nods to the past and little intricate details in the foreground and background taken into consideration when looking at stages like Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone and especially Sky Sanctuary. The Dreamcast levels also look fabulous in this game with Speed Highway and City Escape looking amazing and brimming with life and nostalgia. And to be honest I’ve always wanted a HD remake of City Escape and the end result in Sonic Generations made me so happy when it got announced and playing it brought all my memories flooding back. While I haven’t been able to check out the game in a HD format, it still looks great in standard definition. One a whole the game looks pretty good, however I don’t feel the game looked as great as it could have, there’s none of the pre-rendered cut scenes to enjoy like in Sonic Unleashed or Colours or the ones used for the advertising campaign preceding this game’s release. I also feel like the production values were a lot highly in Sonic Unleashed too. It’s not too much of an issue but one does have to question why the visual production of Generations hadn’t been pushed all the way to the max for the 20th anniversary Sonic game.

But what’s probably even more impressive is the audio; the soundtrack of Sonic Generations is completely jam-packed with Sonic music from nearly every corner of Sonic’s library. If you’ve been keeping up with Sonic Generations since its conception then you would have heard the epic remix of Green Hill Zone, if you haven’t then I have to ask why not? The music from all nine levels have been remixed and updated for this game, when it comes to my favourite song I’d have to say the modern versions of Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone, Sky Sanctuary and Crisis City take the cake. When I started getting into this game and heard songs from challenge stages I so surprised at all the songs I heard, so many songs you collect from the along the way your eyes will be filled with nostalgia. The Sonic tunes in this game show up from nearly every Sonic game in existence, from spin-offs you’d never expect to hear like Sonic Advance 2 and Sonic Battle, to Sonic R and some surprising songs from Sonic 3 and Sonic 06. All of these songs are just filled with memorabilia for the fans.

Longevity

So now it comes to the longevity of the game and for me it’s good but not nearly enough. At the time of writing this review I had played the game for a round 11 hours straight and I had completed the main game and done half of the challenge missions. There are 9 levels each made up of 2 acts, along with I think around 5 main bosses and loads of challenge acts to do as well which is pretty good, but I found myself a little underwhelmed once I started to plough through the game. Now don’t get me wrong there is a lot of stuff to do and collect in Sonic Generations and it is a lot of it is fun, however some of the challenge missions come across as tedious, cheap additions that the developers put in without proper care. And I feel a lot of this stuff could have been left out in place of a possible multiplayer component or something more worthwhile like the Chao Gardens from the Sonic Adventure games. And considering how hard some of the later levels can get some of these challenges do become very cruel and frustrating. Most of them you’ll just want to get through so you’ll never have to do it again. It’s strange, in some ways Generations feels like it’s missing something, this game feels so small, I guess when you take the challenge acts out of play you are left a pretty small Sonic experience. Now this may sound strange but I feel like the last two Sonic games (Unleashed & Colours) felt a lot bigger as an overall package than Generations. I guess without some fancy, innovative gameplay or proper additional acts or gimmicks like in Colours, Generations feels just feels a little empty. It’s still good but still lacking in some ways. I think it’s the lack of a Chao Garden.

Conclusion

So in conclusion Sonic Generations is still a pretty damn good game, it met and exceeded my expectations in a lot of places and had many surprises here and there for me to enjoy. However it’s still not the game that’ll replace my love for Sonic 2 or Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. It’s got the gameplay down, but some of the later level design is off, challenge missions are more a chore than they are fun, boss battle are too short and the last boss in the game is the worst one in the history of Sonic. But all those nit-picking points aside, the game is still a blast to play; I replayed so many stages over and over trying to discover more routes and get faster times or get more music. Sonic Generations may not be perfect, but it’s pretty damn close, for true blue Sonic fans this game is a must.

Rating: 8.5/10

 

London MCM Expo October 2011 Review

My my, it has been quite some time since I did a review of the London MCM Expo, there have been many reasons behind why I haven’t committed to those reviews in the past. A lot of it being due to time constraints or just being purely too lazy to write anything haha. But now in October I’ve decided to come back and do a write-up on my 7th Expo experience purely because this happens to one of the most different Expo experiences I’ve had in all the time I’ve been going down there.

Now before we get into the nitty-gritty aspects of my MCM Expo experience let be go about and establish a few factors to help you understand this story I’m going to tell you… Firstly for those who don’t know, the London MCM Expo ia also known as London Comic-Con, it is a convention for anime, manga, comic books, movies and video-games held two times a year in May and October. It is a joyous event for people of all ages to experience the joy of your favourite things all in one place for a weekend of unforgettable fun. Me and my two best friends (codenamed Touka and Microdroid) have been going for the last three years (well technically Microdroid missed a few Expos for a while now lol) and so far the Expo has never failed to disappoint and has always brought a new level of awesomeness to the table. However this time there were some variations on our Expo experience, firstly me and Touka were university students, secondly since I now am based up in Sheffield, me and the guys aren’t travelling together to and from Luton anymore and thirdly this is the first Expo where I missed the whole Saturday which is more or less the most important day of the weekend so yeah there is gonna be much to discuss so let’s press on…

Also one more thing before we begin, a lot of stuff happens at Expo so some stuff may be left out or be in the wrong order so apologizes in advance ladies and gents! Okay let’s start this thing!

Friday

So on the Friday I had checked the times of the trains from Sheffield to London just so I was sure to meet my friends at London St. Pancras train station, after a partially lengthy train ride I got down just in time and was waiting only mere minutes before my good friends showed up and the Triforce of power (that’s what I call me and other two friends) was complete again. So then we ventured on down to the good old Etap Hotel, dumped our stuff off and went back to the awesomeness that was the Excel Center. We lined up and then got let in and my god, it literally felt like I had come home, whenever you come back to the Expo it feels like time has never passed and everything is at ease with the world, especially for an Expo veteran like myself. Cosplayers abound, video games all over the place, manga on several shelves, costumes on sale, tv monitors showing trailers of films and anime… My god it just felt right and to be honest this was probably the most busy Friday that I’d seen for quite some time.

And so me and my friends cruised around and at one point we lost Microdroid because he went off to talk to one of the artists in the Artists’ Valley, so I went back to the Nintendo Unleashed section to try out of Super Mario 3D Land and my much-anticipated game The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. With Mario on the 3DS it’s literally like playing a scaled down version of Super Mario Galaxy with a ‘Mario 3’ style and level structure. It was alright but nothing to shout about, plus I don’t really like playing Mario with the 3DS Slider, it feels awkward and wrong when compared to a standard control stick, but that’s just me. Skyward Sword on the other hand was a hell of a lot better, it was exhilarating. I went straight into the boss battle with Ghirahim, at first I subconsciously went waggling the Wii remote around like Twilight Princess forgetting that the game works with Wii Motion Plus, so after being told to change my style of play by a Nintendo representative I finally got into the groove and I blocking and swinging. And while the battle with Ghirahim did take longer than it should have because he kept blocking most of my sword attacks and the sensor wasn’t picking up my movements very well I was still having fun. After that I decided to have a tour of the new dungeons in the game and fight some of the new enemies that respond fairly well to the new style of gameplay. Overall Skyward Sword was fun and the game really does look lovely when it’s in front of your eyes, screenshots and trailers don’t do the game justice in my opinion.

After my time on the game Touka and I did some more cruising, bought some manga and other items  and then returned to the hotel and suited up into our cosplay uniforms. Yes, after 3 years of Expo we were finally gonna cosplay, not anything too complicated, but no less important. We were dressing up and as Friend from the manga 20th Century Boys. We had tested out the way in which the masks felt before we headed out and they were impressively made, I still love Touka for crafting them for us. So in our masks and full suits (besides Microdroid who just went in his mask coz he didn’t have suit) we went back to the Excel Center and my god, trying to test out the masks in the evening sky outside in the car park felt impossible to be honest. The lights from lampposts and the buildings was all in my eyes! I’m sure we all had a bit of trouble seeing so we took off the masks and waited until we got closer to the building and then put the masks back on as we headed inside. Even though my vision was partially impaired I could see that we were getting some proper strange looks and it was hilarious and amazing. Went we went back inside of the Expo hall and cruised around and it felt completely exhilarating, but the best part was when some guys walked past us and was like “Who the fuck are they supposed to be!?!” It was so funny. We got around 4 or 5 pictures taken of us that day I think, though I can’t recall at this point in time. But after a bit we decided to power down and it was short but successful cosplay, though had for a long duration of time, plus my mask kept shifting upwards and messing much my eyelashes! And so then once that day was over we went back to the hotel, however I had to leave for another station in London to meet my dad to take me back home in Luton.

Saturday

Well haha, basically I wasn’t there. Yep. I missed the most important day of Expo, however I had a family anniversary to go to so that was mandatory for me and I still had a great day outside of the Expo. Although I did miss my mates that were only coming down on that day specifically, plus I missed the Euro Cosplay Contest and overall it felt wrong to miss out, I mean it was my first Saturday away from the Expo in like forever so it felt and still feels wrong haha.

Sunday

And so Sunday came, the last day of the Expo. Every time you wake up on this day the dreadful realisation that Expo will be over in a few hours sets in and it breaks the hearts of Touka and I greatly, though on Sunday I always try to live in the present and never look into the future or think about the boring reality that I’ll have to go back to. So then we went in and Touka and I cosplayed as Friend once more and got some pictures taken of us only mere minutes after we got in, I think Microdroid went off on his own again so me and Touka cruised around for a bit and chilled by a wall for a few minutes and got some more pictures taken of us. While there I noticed some people looking at us all funny when they walked by, again it was funny as hell. But was really surprising was when some guys were looking at us from a distance and I saw one of them changing their body position and the next thing I see is some bang against the wall next to me, the bloody guy tried to throw something at us! The cheek of that guy! And he then came over to us and asked us if we could see through the masks and we both replied yes to his question. He blatantly tried to through something at us just to see if we could see anything through our masks, what an asshole!

Anyways after about 10 minutes we took our masks off and cruised the Expo hall looking at some fancy artwork, talking to some artists and I watched Touka buy lots of stuff from food to artwork and so on lol. We had also watched 2 panels, one on anime and asian film cinema distribution and then we watched a panel with the winner and the other 2 top cosplayers from the Euro Cosplay Contest, which was every enlightening, heart-warming, inspiring and interesting to watch. Also took a random look outside but there really wasn’t anything going on, especially when you compare it to the crazy happenings that took place back in the May. At one point we came across Masa-kun, the epic violist who we saw at the May Expo and we watched him, Daniel-san and some drummer guy play some songs for ages, it was incredible. I requested like 3 songs, I even got to hear him play the Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1 which made my day! After a bit Masa-kun started to draw in a small crowd of people and even had a mega epic jamming session with one lass with a ukulele, she was just walking by and got drafted into the crew and I think they played a song from Super Mario Bros. and it was just beautiful! At one point Masa-kun had lost his crew and required a drummer to tapped the box, but no one answered and then he looked in my direction and asked me to join him, but I had to say no because I knew if I had gone up I would have messed it up somehow and looked like prat. But I still looked like a fool for not going up after being called up. So we watched Masa-kun for a while after that and then when he finished Microdroid forced me and Touka into picture with Masa-kun, not that it wasn’t awesome, it was just wasn’t of my own doing.

So after that we went back into the Expo and cruised around and after a bit we had done all that we could do so we decided to go to line up for the Cosplay Masquerade, as we headed out there were people saying once you left the Expo hall you couldn’t return inside which troubled me a bit. But since we were going to line up I thought it’d be alright, however the place where it was meant to be was closed and we thought it was somewhere else. So we asked at the entrance but the person there told us it was the place where we thought it was, so we were a tad confused. When we asked at the exit apparently the line for the masquerade had gone in already and I like “I knew it! The line that was forming while we were watching Masa-kun was the line for masquerade because they were lining up proper early.” So at one point I had given up hope and thought “Shit, we’re fucked.” But Touka didn’t give up hope, we went back to the entrance of the Expo hall, asked the staff to be let back in because we had gotten our tickets already and after one of the guys had talked to one of the people on the other end of walkie-talkie (which was a very tension-building moment) we got let in and got some amazing seats at the front. It was an awesome feeling! The masquerade started a lot earlier than I expected, but it was still pretty impressive with some great performances and wonderful costumes on show, though the whole masquerade on whole seemed to move fairly quickly and ended so much swifter than previous masquerades.

And so after that, it ended. The latest Expo, there and gone like a flash of light. It felt like I blinked and it was all over, but I did miss a whole day so it was a pretty quick experience for me. So after we left the Expo hall Microdroid, Touka and I suited up one more time and got some pictures taken and did our crazy walk to finish up our time at the Expo in true style! It was hella jokes to have the whole group back again, though I still felt detached from the guys because of my one day away, but heck we still had a good time regardless. Here’s hoping I’ll be going back to the Expo in May and be able to rock the Excel Center full-on next time round!

Thanks for reading yo! 😀

 

Waiting for Sonic Generations is near impoosible!

Hello there to all how may be reading, basically as you can tell from reading the title of this blog, I am growing a tad impatient waiting for the release of the latest Sonic game, Sonic Generations. I’ve waited for this game since it was visually confirmed back in April 2011 and now that the game is so close to its release date the waiting process is killing me!!!

This is me right now!

As one can see from all of the footage in the gameplay videos and trailers Sonic Generations is a love letter of game to all Sonic fans who have been playing since the days of the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. Ever since the game has come out I’ve kept up to date with every little bit of news that’s emerged, because I don’t know if you can tell yet but I am a Sonic-obsessed fan, I love Sonic to death. He was the whole reason I started sketching and was the first video game I played when I kid back in the 90’s. Even in recent times when Sonic games have not been nearly as good as former years, I still have a lot of love for games like Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Rush 1 & 2, the Secret Rings, Unleashed & Colours too.

Having to wait for a game this awesome-looking should be against the law!

It’s totally unfair that US gamers get to play the game today while we over here in the UK have to wait until Friday, its soooooo painful having to wait for something that you really, really need! After some thought and after talking to my flatmate I decided to play the Sonic Generations Demo on his Xbox 360 and my god was it good, it was like getting super satisfaction all in one place, I went through the Green Hill Zone as classic and modern Sonic several times over and it felt so amazing I can’t even describe it to you. My flatmate saw it and he laughed for ages because I sat there in same position for ages with massive grin on my face, I was so high on that demo it was crazy. So now I am playing music from the soundtracks of Sonic and the Secret Rings, Unleashed and Colours which is really gearing me up and making me well happy! But still… I NEED THIS GAME NOW!!!!!

THIS PICTURE PRETTY MUCH SUMS UP MY FEELINGS TOWARDS SONIC GENERATIONS AT THIS POINT IN TIME!

Well Friday better come pretty soon as I am just about ready to explode from all this waiting for the latest Sonic game. 😛