Random Blog 12: Me & My Love For Super Smash Brothers!

Good day to you ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for Random Blog entry. And today I’m gonna talk about something that I have a serious amount of love for and because of recent events I just have to talk about it. Today I’ll be giving you a brief history of my experience of the Super Smash Bros. series.

The Games That Have Come Out So Far

Super Smash Bros. (1999)

Euro Cover Art For Super Smash Bros. N64

Ah yes the game that started it all. What we have here is a fighting game unlike any other. Where most fighting games were mainly two-on-two like in Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Tekken, this was a 4-player all-out assault. In SSB you took several famous Nintendo character from their key franchises and made them duke it out in 4-player mayhem. The concept was unique at the time because there wasn’t really many, if any other companies doing the same thing at the time. Players could pick from 12 characters (8 to begin with and 4 more unlockable ones), with 9 stages to pick from and you could either play the solo ‘Classic’ mode or mess around with friends in multiplayer time or stock battles. Each character had a unique moveset but in addition to that you could use items that could heal or damage you or your opponents, and then there were some stages had hazards that had to avoid too. The game was madness, but it was a critical and commercial success and from here the series could only go onwards and upwards.

Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001)

If SSB for N64 was the starter in a three-course meal that Super Smash Bros. Melee for GameCube was the main course. Melee came out and basically blew everyone’s expectations. It dwarfed the original game and improved everything. Going into a bit more depth about the features of the game, you had a character roster of 25 which introduced even more characters from established franchises while introducing some new faces (Bowser, Ganondorf, Mewtwo, Ice Climbers and Mr. Game & Watch among others), there were around three times the amount of stages to select and the combat, oh the combat, it was SO good. In Melee combat was faster, tighter and featured even more moves like directional throwing, one additional special attack, charged smash attacks, air dodging and so much more. Besides the famous multiplayer mode which even had a tournament mode, the solo mode had a Classic mode reminiscent of the orignal game and a new Adventure mode where you fighting characters, but also venturing through large worlds, racing against time and getting to the final boss that changed depending on the difficulty chosen at the beginning. And lastly the presentation for the game was SO good, straight from the gorgeous introduction with the orchestrated music and amazing pre-rendered CG cut-scenes, it was amazing. While the game isn’t as visually stunning as say Metroid Prime, F-Zero GX or LOZ: Wind Waker, I do believe it gave us the most detailed version of these characters at the point in time, and the music is some of favourite remixes and original material from any game ever thanks to the new orchestral sound.

Melee is one of the best GameCube games for a reason, it was and still is til this day one of the best multiplayer experiences that Nintendo have ever given us gamers. This was the game that most GameCube owners had in their collection either as first purchase or obtained a little while after its original release.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008)

This game took everything about the last game expanded things by 100! I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that everything got a dramatic increase in scope and detail. When it comes to overall including the modes you got in Melee, you had new solo mode, the Subspace Emissary which was an upgraded version of Adventure mode from the last game, there was also sticker and CD collecting introduced, and most importantly there was online play for the first time. It terms of combat the game was changed a bit with some upgrades to combat and item use, however things were slowed down and simplified a bit for casual players. The character roster was boosted from 25 to 35 (39 if you count Sheik, Zero Suit Samus and the Pokemon Trainer’s Pokemon as separate characters) and we got some fighters replaced and some altogether new fighters, but the most interesting of these was the inclusion of Metal Gear Solid’s Solid Snake and long-awaited arrival of Sega’s mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog.

The hype for this game was ridiculous, ever since E3 2006 and I don’t think I have seen that kind of hype and excitement for a game in since besides possibly the wait for GTA V or Pokemon X & Y. I think the game delivered on the hype for the most part with most fans saying that the game was the best entry in the series and it was also one of the highest selling Wii games too.

The only thing this intro is missing an epic announcer saying the name of the game… That and original cut-scenes. 😛

How This Series Affected Me

To say that I love the Smash Bros. series would be an understatement, I ADORE this series. Besides the days when I played GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and the Mario Kart and Party games, this game series would be the one that provided me with my favourite multiplayer experiences. There is something so satisfying about taking several Nintendo characters and pitting them up against each other in combat. It is an adrenaline-fueled, chaotic and fun kind of experience that is hard to describe unless you’ve played it for yourself. Ever since I started with this game series around the year 2000 or 2001 I’ve been hooked. It was like the Avengers crossover of Nintendo video games (sure the Capcom Vs. series had already did a few crossover fighting games, but this was a different kind of beast altogether). Melee pretty much changed my life, I was obsessed and I was playing that game from the age of 12 til about 18. By the time Brawl came out I had blown up from all the nerdgasms I’d been doing, while I did miss the faster, more technical combat of Melee, Brawl had done so much more right and had online. Only problem was that I never played Brawl as long as Melee, in fact around two years in I sort of left it alone as I went into my hazy phase with video games. That being said, it is pretty much the only Wii game I go back to whenever I dust the old console off because it’s the only one I like that much.

The Smash Bros. series is now one that I adore just as much or possibly more than the Sonic series and that’s saying a lot coming from me. This series has yet to wrong me, it just delivers on the fun and entertainment factor by like 10,000! Just seeing the games, listening to the music or playing it just gives me an immense sense of satisfaction that not many other gaming franchises can.

The Future

And now of course we have Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS coming out later on this year. To say that I’m hyped for this new entry in this series would be an understatement.

When this game was announced at E3 2011 I went mad with speculation just trying to think about how this game would turn out. But it wasn’t until E3 2013 when we got to the first look at the new game and holy crap it was a surprise and a half. The amazing trailer showed off Smash Bros. coming to the Wii U in glorious HD but also on the 3DS too. It was beautiful sight, but the real revelation was seeing Mega Man added as a fighter. I think the internet blew up with all the gaming nerds freaking out. And since then game director Masahiro Sakurai has been giving us fans on the game daily updates since then updating us on characters, stages, move-sets, items and so on, it has been a great time to be Nintendo nerd.

These are the character-specific posters for the new combatants all complete with different styles.

At this current point in time we have 29 characters announced, details on the online modes, several stages shown for both the Wii U and 3DS versions and then of course there’s the release dates with the 3DS version coming out in the summer and the Wii U version coming out in the winter. Right now there’s a been a lot of information at this point in time, however there’s still a lot of time before the games are released, so I am really interested to see what information is released at E3 this year.

Here’s a beast trailer compilation:

So yeah those are my thoughts on the Super Smash Bros. series, it is a series that I can’t see my life without. It is chaotic, unique and a hell of a lot of fun. My excitement for the new games in this series have me freaking out, I have watched all of the footage for the game over and over and I am going out of my mind just trying to be patient. All I can say if you haven’t experienced this game series yet, try out one of the games I highlighted or buy the new games when they come out because the world of Smash Bros. is one of joy that no gamer should be without. 🙂

 

Random Blog 05: The Crazy Nature of the Summertime

Howdy ladies and gentlemen, time for another random blog instalment. It’s been a while since the last time I did one of these but I feel like the time is right to do it again. Today I’m gonna talk about the summer and how it tampers with the mind.

Okay so summertime, it is the best time of year because there’s normally a lot of sun, freedom from education if you’re young enough and this season just gives ya several months of potential opportunities. However this is also the point in time where things tend to get a little funky and crazy.

What I mean by that is that unless you have a holiday or set plan of events then the summertime can be a funky and unnatural experience.

This is so true, but it’s that easy living that can take you by surprise.

For me the summertime it’s always my favourite time of year because back in the past, after school and college when the summer hit it was the best thing ever. Summer just warrants a lot of time for people to chill out, be lazy and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts in the UK. The way I’ve always liked to spend my summer has been playing video games, watching films in the cinema, hanging with my friends and just being lazy and napping.

But with so much free time things just get very boring, tedious and confusing. And I say confusing because without a proper schedule you don’t do anything and because of that you lose track of time. You then don’t know what day or time it is and soon weeks start to go by without you noticing. That is the power that the summertime has over you.

Now at this current point in time, the summer feels like it’s just started but for some reason I haven’t gotten into the groove yet. Summertime is all about fun and as Regular Show put it “Summertime lovin’, lovin’ in the summertime.” That song in the show is sort of how I feel the summer should be.

The dancing tape in Regular Show just embodies the amount of fun that one should be having in the summertime and I want it too!

So far this summer I’ve just been chilling, sleeping and typically being a lazy man and for the most part that’s fine. But now loads of my uni mates have run off home, I have no internet in my house so I have to run to uni to get my intake and currently I don’t feel like I’ve done anything spectacular to make me FEEL like I’m currently in the month of summer.

It’s strange to say but I wanna feel as epic as this guy all the time, never stopping lol.

These summer days are strange and full surprises and we’ve only just begun to get into it. I know in a few weeks I’ll be in good place and would have hopefully started some epic summertime memories so here’s hoping the lazy side of summer doesn’t take over me! XD

 

It’s My Birthday Today! Kick Ass!

 Howdy ladies and gentlemen of WordPress. Today is a good day as it is my birthday so I thought I’d just blog about it haha.

So yes today is the celebration of my birthday again and I am now 23. This age is apparently unlikely according to Blink-182 because they say “No one likes you when you’re 23.” So I fear for what will happen to me in the future, though I seem to have made an enemy already so I’m fulfilling that prophecy already, more on that later.

Birthdays are a strange thing aren’t they? It is just one day in the year when people will pay attention to you, spoil you and treat you right nice. It is a lovely feeling. Birthdays are one of those things that always feel good. Sure after your childhood and the age of 18 birthdays tend to lose their staying power and become less special, but I believe birthdays can still be kick ass as long you make the day epic. This may sound a little sad but I love birthdays because it reminds me that people still care about me. When I’m just chilling in life things tend to be a little dull at times so when I get all this love on my birthday it makes me feel absurd amounts of happiness.

For my birthday this year I had a house party last night with me mates and it was pretty filthy. I had a “It’s my party and I’ll do what I want to, do what I want to!” kind of attitude. While only half of the people I invited showed up it was still a cracking night with mates from work and uni together partying hardcore style! We danced, burned stuff in my metal bin in the back garden, got drunk and had a crazy time. It was very self-contained but for what it was I was satisfied and glad to be around my friends.

This was Matt and myself last night, I was smiling like that for the majority of last night haha.

It was primarily beautiful for the most part; however there was one party pooper who tried to ruin my night. Now earlier in this post I said I was fulfilling the prophecy by Blink-182 in their song “What’s My Age Again?” and that is down to one of the horrible housemates I am currently living with. I am going to watch my language over the next few sentences but suffice to say she isn’t a nice person and I don’t like her. She’s had it out for me for months and last night she tried to shut my party down and argued with me in front of everyone. She even said she’d call the police on me. Wow, okay… Why? I kind of lost my top in front of her but in all honesty it’s all good, she even woke me up this morning threatening me. To that I say good, if she wishes to make an enemy, she has one now haha.

That sheep that shitted, that was her last night.

Too right.

Anyways at the time of writing this post I am hung over from last night’s house party and I’m currently having a Will Smith session on my iTunes, I’m in a good groove right now (plus Will Smith is the best ever so his music must be played). In between I had a listen to my mum’s radio show online and she gave me a shout out and song dedication too, I was so jolly about it. Today I feel immaculate, fine, incredible and crazy all at the same time.

This is me today with my amazing birthday card that my mate made for me. BEST. BIRTHDAY. CARD. EVER!

As for the rest of today I’ll probably be recovering and then get a take away and watch a good DVD later on, oh and I’ll also be eating the cakes my mate bought for me too. Well that’s it for this blog post, just thought I’d share my birthday happiness with you lot haha. I guess until the next time I’ll catch ya on the flip side yo! 😀 😀

 

My life feels empty when I’m not blogging!

Howdy people of the interweb, I’ve been away from my blog for around 4-5 days but I’m back and ready to start writing all forms of useful and useless stuff on here for you to read… OR dismiss. Hey it’s your choice haha. 🙂 The reason I’ve been away so long was because I went back home and since the internet was barely one I wasn’t able to blog in full-force like I usually do so I’ve been away from my blog for too long and to be honest it was horrible.

Honestly that’s the way I feel.

At some point in 2012 I became addicted to blogging, now I can’t recall specifically when it happened but I do know that when I realised how much I loved to write stuff on here I couldn’t leave it alone. Blogging had become integrated into my internal system and was as much a part of me as is my love films and video games. So when there were days when I wasn’t blogging, those were the worst of times. Not doing a blog post on day during the spring and summer just felt wrong to me and I felt that I was wasting my time when I wasn’t blogging. Outside of playing video games and watching American TV shows, blogging one WordPress was the most productive thing that I did over the course of 2012 and that goes to be true in 2013 too.

Blogging truly is one of my more recent identifiable features and I can’t stand the thought of being away from my blog, not writing about film news or stories in my life or reviewing things just to throw out there my own opinion.

So yeah now that’s in my chair in my room ready to blog I have much to do and a lot to catch up on so get ready for some hardcore stuff from me very soon! Hypersonic55 signing out! 😀

 

And so August is here, one month of Summer Fun left…

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another blog by me, the hypersonic55! 😀

Alas so now the month of August is here and I have been dreading it for quite some time. Now don’t get me wrong, August isn’t a bad month by any means and it can be the month in the summertime where most of the good times take place, however it is technically the last free month of freedom in the summer until September comes around and then for us students the boring academic year starts up again. 😦

After the summer’s gone, that happy feeling of freedom just disappears with the appearance of September…

Every summer that I have known after 2008 has felt the same with August being the month where you assess the summer that you have experienced and realise that when August hits, your fun is truly over because college or uni was waiting for you just around the corner in September. The terrible thing is when August hits and you realise you’ve had a fairly uneventful summer, that feeling of depression kicks in, knowing that the summer is nearly over, it sucked and it isn’t going to get better. So then you’re left counting down the days until you go back to your educational lifestyle that will consume all of your time.

Obviously this whole August summer thing doesn’t apply to teens not in college/university or adults in full-time work because they don’t know the wonders of having so much free time in the summer only to go back to world of education for around 9 months. Only school kids, college kids and uni students know what the deal is. For school kids it’s a lot worse, at that age the fact that you’re free from school in general feels like a gift from God (well it did for me :D) and when that freedom’s over it really does feel like a kick in the teeth to have to go back to school. For college people the feeling is pretty similar, I think college people like the feeling of escape and most don’t want to go back. As for uni students, I think us lot love having soooooo much extra free time than school and college people, it’s a whole almost 4 months to do whatever you want. To have that amount of free time feels godly and to have to give it up is a sad feeling indeed. So with August being the only thing separating us uni students from that academic lifestyle again I think you can understand why the appearance of this month is quite troubling.

For me, I have had a decent summer so far to be honest, it has had some great moments which have been embedded in my memories forever, however there have also been some dull moments in time and there have been some downright hella boring moments that I would rather forget. One of my main issues with this summer has been the fact I haven’t been able to execute it in the way that I wanted. I had so many plans and projects I wanted to do, several of which never really got off the ground which has made me quite disheartened and grumpy. But hell we still have a good few weeks left of the summer, and the cinema will hopefully keep me entertained with the release of The Bourne Legacy, Brave and The Expendables 2 and maybe a couple more viewings of The Dark Knight Rises and then there’s the potential friend gatherings and nights out too! So hell might as well make the best of it! 😀

 

Those Crazy Uni Days!

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another blog post. Tonight’s post is going to be a little simpler in nature to most of the hardcore film and video game posts I’ve been doing recently. It’s literally gonna be me talking about me and my recent crazy perspective on my life in university.

University life… Yes, it is all it’s cracked up to be and then some. It has certainly impressed me and passed my expectations.

Since coming to university in Sheffield back in September and being initially shocked at how big the city was, how many things there were to see and do and also shocked by the whole nightlife. However a lot of time has passed and now I have a much better perspective on things and looking back on things even though I have suffered greatly, have metal breakdowns and been on the edge of sanity at the same time I’ve had so much fun and have so many stories to tell, in the end I’m so glad I came here.

From September I came here and got to know my flatmates, we’d gone out in the first initial weeks of uni and we danced, we got drunk and raved into the early hours of the morning. Me and my flatmate Craig also found the gaming society in our uni and became part of that and since then they have become part of my family, just hanging out and gaming, good times, nothing comes close to a good game session with good people 😀 With the game society we’ve gone to Quasar (Lazer Quest) twice and gone a good few nights out in socials and just on general nights of clubbing. It’s been fantastic. And speaking of clubbing… Man, I have gone out so much its unreal. While not every night out has been perfect or completely memorable, when a good night has come along, my god, they have come and been some of the best times of my life in the company of brilliant people I’m glad to call my friends. Even if we’re not going out and raving it up, I’m just chilling inside in my flat with my flat mates gaming, messing around or having dancing sessions or sometimes we go out to meet our mates at their houses or meet up in the park and do more hanging. Also one of the best things about the people I have met up here in Sheffield is that some of those friends I met have now become the lovely people I shall be living with next year in our new house that we’ll be transferring into in July and to be honest I couldn’t have asked for better people to leave with. We’re all so similar, firstly we’re all gamers which is like the best thing ever in my life, plus we’re all into cartoons especially Adventure Time and we seem to gel really well as a group but also as individuals, it’s just fabulous.

And obviously the course I’m taking at university does come into play somewhere haha and to be honest its pretty good. I mean at first in the first few months leading up to Christmas I really didn’t like what we were doing all that much, there was a lot to do with blogging, essay assignments and working with complicated and frustrating animation software like 3DS Max and Adobe Flash which annoyed me to the highest heavens! Though there was some nice things to do like doing screencasts and actually learning how to animate in the second and third dimension because I had never tampered with anything like that before coming to university. Luckily the course finally picked up after January started with us doing some stop motion animation and though the experience was just as frustrating as it was in college, but thankfully it was a much shorter and funnier experience. Then we moved onto doing 2D animation again, but this time it was with a program called Pencil and it was a hell of a lot easier to use than Flash. Using this software we had to do walk and run cycles. Plus it was a completely new experience as I was working with tablets. Though I had used one briefly in college, art tablets are just alien to me. The project was finished recently and it was fun but caused be a great deal of stress when my work decided to disappear, become corrupted or the software would crash on many occasions. I had to deal with so much hassle on the night before and on the day of the work deadline. Luckily like a don I preserved and got my work on time because I’m frigging awesome! It really was a close call but as I put it “I bet the system!”

As I said before while I have had so many great moments in university, I have also faced some of the darkest days I have ever seen in my life. I have been in the deep end with coursework, having awkward moments of friendship with people and been in financial ruin on several occasions to the point where it nearly destroyed my world. It really did affect my life and the way I acted for a long time. Luckily I have the support of my family and friends that has kept my spirits above the pont of drowning into a state of depression and I’ve never been more thankful for their existence.

Family and friends, the most important people in my world, especially in the last few months.

In the end even though my first year of university isn’t quite over yet, it’s been a turbulent rollercoaster ride of different emotions, situations, scenarios and life-changing stuff. And though some of those of experiences I wish I’d never lived through, I don’t regret it because they say whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger and I believe I am a much stronger individual because of my trials and tribulations. all I can do now is look forward to the future which is looking pretty bright, I have the MCM London Expo to look forward to, plus I’ll be moving into my new house in a little while, plus The Avengers will be out next month and lastly it’ll be my birthday in 2 days!!! Hooray for me, I can’t wait!!

Thanks for reading yo 😀

 

Little moments of fun in life

Though I’ve complained about the current state of my life in blog form on many occasions, luckily there happens to be a few moments in between all of the boredom and tedious uni classes that make life worth living. It’s just those small things that make the big differences. Like last night when I went to a fun fair in Sheffield with three friends, it was an incredible time. Though yesterday had been a pretty dull day overall, when the night came around things did get better. Firstly I had finally gotten Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions on my PC, a game I have been wanting to play for ages! And while the controls took some time to get used to, I was enjoying myself very much. Then I had me some steak and I love steak ever so much, it was so satisfying and just when I thought that my night was going to end something lovely happened. My flatmate told me that two of our other friends were heading up to the fun fair in town and they wanted us to come along and since my flatmate and I had next to nothing to do we jumped at the opportunity to go out and have fun.

Fun fairs, they are hella fun!

So then a little while later our friends came over, we chilled for a bit and then headed out. When we got there I swear it felt like being a kid again. Fun fairs really do bring out my kiddy side and in true child-like style me and my friend wanted to go on the highest ride and that we did. We got onto the ride and then we ascended into the air and my mate was started having second thoughts. We were suspended in the air for a bit before the ride started and we got a good view of Sheffield at night which is quite pretty I must say. Then the ride started and holy crap that initial drop made me crap my pants and then after that I was just laughing the entire rest of the ride, it was an incredible adrenaline rush! We then when onto another two rides with my other mates and it was awesome. Unfortunately one of my mates was feeling a bit ill afterwards so we headed off, but heck we had fun at the fair, just pure fun without any complications. Those are the kind of nights I live for.

We then went to McDonald’s to get some food and meet up with one of our friends’ housemates and then we went back to theirs and along the way we were having funny conversations about posh people and also talking about northern and southern accents. When we got back to their house it turned into a gaming session. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 on the TV, while Sonic the Hedgehog 1 is being played on the iPhone and I could hear Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS and I could also hear Star Fox 64 on another 3DS too. So much gaming all at once, it was madness and I loved it! And just to top off an awesome night we started watching Adventure Time on the TV via a HDMI cable plugged into one of the housemates’ laptop. It was hilarious and ridiculous, Adventure Time really is one of those TV shows that is original, unique and leaves you with a lasting impressive. It is one of very few cartoons in existence at the moment that is actually good, consistent and stands out from the crowd. Anyways back to the story, after a while some us started to drift off and after 1am me and my flatmate decided to call it a night and head back to our flat. So when we got back I was still just trying to get over how great the night was, it required so little effort and yet turned out to be one of the best nights I’ve had for ages. While I love to go out to the clubs and party, it’s great to have nights like the one I had yesterday where you are just in good company, doing things that you like to do and just having plain old fun which are always so much simpler and satisfying too.

 

What happened to the fun times?

It’s strange how fast things can change in a week, I mean last week everything was fairly turbulent and stressful but ended on a good note and my world was finally in a fun groove. But now I look at my life at this current point in time and its dull, ever so dull, with nothing to do, no one to hang with (well no one that wants to come out and hang at least) and terrible weather, its like some sort of force is in the air preventing me from having fun and enjoying life at uni. One may ask what exactly do I mean? Well I shall give you one basic example of how my world was incredibly fun and fantastic and then literally dropped into the area of bordem in a short space of a few days.

So let’s rewind back to last week Friday where I was facing one of the most stressful days of my life where I had a uni assignment to had in and a job interview to tackle as well and I was in a state of panic, stress and confusion. Needless to say things ended terribly in both departments, not intentionally of course but I encountered a number of problems leading up to my uni assignment hand-in time and I didn’t get in on time and that had messed me up for my job interview I had to do straight afterwards. The way in which my job interview went was just tragic, let’s just say I failed. And then after that I got lost when I decided to walk home from where my job interview was which clearly was not the smartest choice due to the fact that I barely know the geography of Sheffield already so walking was just a bad choice. I was in unknown territory and had to follow signs heading back into the city center and it took me around one hour and half to get back into town and took me an additional half hour to get back to my flat, so all in all it took me around two hours to get home. Thank god I had my music to hold me together or I would not have survived that ordeal. Sure one could argue that if I had taken the bus I wouldn’t have been in such an awful situation, but due to the fact that I left my wallet at home I wouldn’t have been able to get on anyway, plus I don’t like taking public transport and would much prefer to walk most places because I’m stubborn and an idiot in some cases lol.

So as you can imagine by the time I had gotten back I was completely tired and my feet and legs were not functioning very well, so after a quick conversation with my flatmate I crashed out for a few hours and awoke in the later hours of the night. And by this time my flatemate and my other friends had come over and were making noise loud enough to wake me up from my sleeping state (which is hard because I sleep like a rock). So then I ventured out and met them, then we went out to the pub and we actually had a very jolly night out. For me and flatmate it was great to get out and hang in such a cool environment on a social event like that one since we don’t do it that often. We drank, we conversed, we laughed and enjoyed each others company and I got to eat some fast food for the first time this year and it was delightful. That night was incredible, from the disgusting way Friday had started and panned out over the course of the day to the way it changed in the evening it was a massive transition and much-needed one too. So just by the way that night ended I knew that the day after would be just as good if not better. 🙂

So then Saturday came and it was one of my flatmate Matt’s birthday and for many weeks prior to that date he had spoken of the epic night out we were going to have. And so on that day I was woken up by him and his girlfriend, we sang a happy birthday for him and was treated to some lovely cake too. Then several hours went by and then we all got ready and the pre-party session began and my goodness it was incredible, the dancing, the games, the atmosphere, the alcohol, it was perfect. I shall not go into details about the exact happenings, but let’s just say it was very lively and crazy. So then we headed out to meet some other mates in the pub and from there the night just got even crazier, there was a lot of picture-taking, drinking, dancing and madness that ensued. It was a mad night, so much so that I actually forgot the majority of it. I was that far gone. The morning after I felt terrible, but I got a recap of the night from my flatmate Craig and then saw all of the pictures I took and it started to fill in the gaps for me. Even though I still don’t quite remember all of the night, from what I do remember it was the best night I have had in Sheffield for a long time, maybe ever. I was having fun, I was smiling, yes I was in my element… However I think that’s where the fun ended.

And on the day after I spent the majority of the day recovering from the worst stomach ache in existence and only saw one or two of my flatmates that day. And from there the times just got considerably dull, people barely came out of their rooms and when I did come out I barely saw anyone or no one at all. And that continued for days, it’s like the communication between us broke down and no one came out anymore and for the first time in this flat since coming here in September everything felt so disconnected. Which is a complete contrast to how we were for the first few months, just hanging in each others company in the living room all the time either playing games or just making food or just sitting around talking about whatever was on our minds. That was the kind of thing I was used to and to have it taken away felt horrible. I always knew there were going to be times where we weren’t always hanging out but I didn’t think it would end up like this. For me I like my alone time just as much a the next man, but communication and interaction with other people is something I need or I cease to function and get sad. It also doesn’t help that one my flatmates is constantly in and out of flat at the moment and he normally is the glue that holds us together in a lot of ways and he has the fun factor that keeps us together when we’re not all closed off in our rooms.

At at this point in time I’m not sure what the deal is, things are just extremely boring, dull and uninteresting and because of this factor I’m stuck. Without fun I’m not jolly or positive and since I’m still in this funk I can’t function, I don’t feel like being productive with my time and if I’m not doing my own projects or going to uni I have no structure to my life, so nothing happens. So at this current point in my life I write blogs to feel productive. I have YouTube videos to make, unfinished science fiction stories to write and yet I don’t feel like doing it yet because my mood is so wrong. Man this sucks. 😡

 

 

 

 

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!