The capacitors of my old video card blew up. There were four of them on the board and I think they gave up one at a time without me noticing. Months earlier, I would hear “plastic-ky” explosions in my room and I would search far and wide where it came from but would always end up empty-handed. There wasn’t any smoke and nothing smells burnt. Just the other day, I heard another one. I didn’t bother looking for its source and just carried on with what I was doing – playing World of Warcraft. Everything was okay until I decided to restart my computer. After it shut down, it didn’t boot. All the LEDs were still blinking normally and the fans seem to be working fine so I was able to deduce that the problem was with the video card. And it indeed was. There they were… 4 blown capacitors bleeding orange stuff.
Poor thing… and poor me – I need to buy a new one because of this. It’s a good thing that WoW can run on the built-in video card of my mobo. I can hold off any purchases for now.
Oh yes, I did… I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again. I’ve decided to revive my account after almost 3 long years of dormancy. For now, I’ve just been using the free 10-day trial offered by Blizzard for the Cataclysm expansion pack. If I’m hooked after the trial period, I may be subscribing again.
I was supposed to buy myself an iPad 2 last Friday but after a recent unfortunate event, I decided to just give my hard-earned cash to Blizzard instead.
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Yeah, I almost owned an iPad 2. I was at the mall during the device’s launch but I just stood outside – watching as the people eagerly handed out their credit cards to the cashier. I kept telling myself that the iPad looks good now only because of the hype surrounding it and that I will never actually use it. After 2 hours of that, I finally decided to just go home.
I know I will have no use for it but to be honest, I really want one. I’m trying my best not to give in to temptation and I’m wishing that by the time that I’ve REALLY decided to get one, there won’t be any stocks left.
It’s also not helping that my officemate bought one. I think he left it charging in my cube just to tease me.
Apple’s reality distortion field is really good.
I successfully revived my dying wireless mouse. Thanks to Google and a step-by-step guide that I found over at overclock.net, I managed to fix my auto-double-clicking Logitech M305 mouse.
I’ve never had so much hassle over a piece of disposable PC peripheral because I usually buy the cheap ones which I just throw away once they get broken.
If you will notice, Logitech is not really a cheap brand. The mouse that I bought actually costs five times more than the unbranded ones. And it really annoys me that of all the mice that I bought, this is the only one that did not even reach 6 months of sporadic use. Considering that the only reason why I bought this is for its ‘renowned’ quality, it’s annoyingly ironic.
We don’t have service centers for Logitech from where I’m from and I’ve already lost the purchase receipt so I really can’t do anything about this but try to fix it myself.
With the help of the step-by-step guide that I found, I replaced the problematic copper springs with ones that I took off of an old set that I no longer use.
So far, it has been working properly. Due to this experience (and another one on my ‘lemon’ Logitech Wireless Keyboard), I don’t think I will be buying anything Logitech in the near future – or until they’ve established a service center locally.
Dragon Age 2 for PS3 has bugs all over the place. From faulty game mechanics, to stuck quests, to comedic epileptic seizures that some NPCs seems to have during cut scenes, this game has it all. But still, I managed to finish the game with 70% trophies. That’s good enough for now. I think I need to finish the game twice to be able to get all the trophies – which I’m not really in the mood for.
For what it’s worth, I did enjoy playing this. The one thing that I hated about it was having to spend lots of time figuring out bugged quests. I would have been finished weeks earlier if only I knew those stupid quests can’t be completed.
Next game on my backlog list:
Another Bioware game. I hope the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 is not as buggy as Dragon Age 2.
There’s going to be a Street Fighter vs. Tekken crossover game. I’ve been addicted to both of these titles during different times in my life and I like how both games played. I’m just not sure if it’s a good idea to merge them – they have way different styles.
It would be nice though if Street Fighter will be the one adjusting to the Tekken mechanics. I’d like to see Ryu do his signature flashy moves in a more ‘martial-artsy’ 10-hit combo fashion.
Now that I’m thinking about fighting games, I just realized that I haven’t actually played one since Tekken Tag. I tried playing Marvel vs. Capcom (the latest one whose number I forgot) just to try it out and I quickly remembered why I don’t like games of this kind. I just button-mashed my way to victory while trying to understand what all those flashing lights were about.
Apparently, it’s the iPad’s first year anniversary.
I never bought one because as soon as I’ve convinced myself that it’s okay to waste money on ridiculous fads, Apple announced the iPad 2. Imagine that – the first generation iPad just turned one but it felt like it was as old as I am. And considering that it took almost 8 months for that device to officially arrive on our shores, it “aged” really fast. Nowadays, with the newer version out, people are avoiding this old device like a disease. If it’s only a year old and it took 8 months for it to become locally available (read as “stabilized it’s price”), the iPad is, technically, only 4 months old . Poor thing. For its four months of existence here, it never did became happy because the iPad 2 rumors / hype were already going around since the start of the year.
The first born inferiority complex.
Anyway, I’m saving up money for an iPad 2 because I really would like to know how it feels like to browse sites while lying in bed. Haha… Hopefully, the iPad 3 won’t come out yet a year from now. We don’t want the iPad 2 to become the rebellious black sheep.
Dead Island’s trailer is so cool. I like the original version with the reverse chronological sequence better. The ‘rewind’ adds a little bit more drama to the story. The re-released trailer that had the normal chronological order just looked like any ordinary scene from common zombie movies.
Anyway, I hope this gets to be a cinematic game. There are too many zombie ‘shooter’ games already – and I’m not a fan of them. I want more games that play like Uncharted 2. Curse you, Naughty Dog, for leaving me wanting more.
As if I haven’t said it enough, my current project is to finish all of the games that I’ve started on the PS3. After setting this personal goal for this year, I’ve already finished the following games:
The next game on my list is Dead Space 2 (or until something else good comes along before I begin). I love horror movies but I’m not really sure if I’m a fan of these “survival-type” games. I think the only game of this genre that I was able to actually finish was Resident Evil 2. And I cheated just to beat it. Hopefully, with Dead Space 2, I won’t have to do that and still be able to enjoy the game from beginning to end.
So far, I’m liking its story. Since I wasn’t able to play its 1st installment, I downloaded all of the necessary materials needed to be able to understand the Dead Space universe. I watched both of its movies and I’ve read the Wikipedia article on the first game. This got me all psyched-up and excited to play. All that’s left now is to finish Dragon Age 2 and then I can move on.
Unfortunately, I can’t do so. Dragon Age 2 has this stupid “Isabella bug” that I can’t seem to avoid. I’ve already reached the final act last weekend but I kept repeating it because I’m always getting the bug. So far, my efforts to avoid the issue haven’t paid off yet. I’m going to try next a workaround that I read on some forum. All I’ve got to do is to play for 2-3 hours without ever stopping and without ever saving the game. Haha… Easier said than done.
I was planning on doing this next weekend but since I’m also trying to mange my ever dwindling social life, I may need to put this off for another week. Human interaction comes first. I also can’t do it during weeknights because I’m sure that if I did so, I won’t be able to report for work the next day.
Poor me. Hehe… Now you know what a nerd has to go through everyday.
Whenever I play role-playing games, I don’t usually customize my character’s name and appearance. I like using the game’s default settings for two reasons:
Given this behavior, it really annoys me that the lead character of Dragon Age II, the game that I’m currently playing, looks a lot like Manny Pacquiao.
Its a good thing that he carries a weapon and not throw punches during battle.
I was supposed to post this as a reply to a comment on my other blog but I felt that this is worthy of its own spot here. Hehe…
Of course I remember this game!
I used to call this Moonwind. Since its cartridge's art is in Japanese, I had no choice but to trust the saleslady who coined this game "Moonwind." Based on further research, it turns out that its title roughly translates to "Moon Wind Devil Story" or to be more accurate, "The Legend of the Lunar Wind Demon." Close enough.
This is actually the first RPG (Role Playing Game) that I got addicted to. I was 9 or 10 years old when we (with my gamer neighbor Andre) used to draw dungeon maps on manila papers that served as our walkthrough.
We got even more addicted to finishing the game when the lead character of the story got included in the “Konami Worlds” video game.
Such epic games.
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@Prince: How about this one:
Do you remember this game? I bet you also remember someone associated with this. Hehe…
This is where I’ll be posting information on the things that I do to keep myself distracted.
As of this writing, my active side “project” is my ever reliable PS3.
I’ve just recently installed a custom firmware on it (which I believe is not illegal on its own) and I’ve been spending a lot time playing Dragon Age 2 on it.
