Retro: Evil Zone (Eretzvaju)

So I thought I'd talk about a retro game every now and then to give a bit of variety to the things I post.

The first 'retro' game I'm going to talk about is Evil Zone (or Eretzvaju) on the Playstation.
This was, is and will be my most favourite game of all time. Okay, the graphics may be rubbish (then and now) and the game play wasn't brilliant - compared to similar games such as Dead or Alive, or Tekken - but I found it a game that I truly loved.

Evil Zone is an anime style beat-them-up and back when it was released in 1999 the anime style wasn't exactly popular, and therefore remained a game under the popularity radar. The game requires the player to use quick reflexes, timing and precision, rather than memorizing huge lists of combos and memorizing other obscure knowledge like in most other fighting games. Even though this take on fighting games is an idea that is pretty perfect for someone like myself who sucks at massive amounts of combos (button bashing ftw!) there was one HUGE flaw with the game... one attack button. Triangle to be exact. I personally didn't find it a problem as I found it easy to master all move that was available with the ability to actually know when to execute them.

So the nutshell story behind Evil Zone is that Ihadulca has been a naughty girl and causing terror over I-preseru and is now trapped within the Evil Zone. Although this is a nice temporary home for her she still needs to be defeated and a 'big' fighting tournament is held where fighters are summoned from other dimensions to test their strengths and see who is worthy of killing Ihadulca.

The 10 playable characters each have their own individual story modes which is portrayed in a slightly different manner compared to other games. The characters produce their own TV shows, where they talk to the person they are about to fight like a chat show, while also beefing themselves up. And as a proud member of the gaming society that actually skips the credits at the end of each game, this game continues the story of each character (via images) after they had finally defeated Ihadulca throughout the whole of the credits...

Overall if the game doesn't get your fancy the soundtrack is amazing! I actually still use Midori Himeno's theme song as my alarm! Sad right? Hey, it wakes me up in the morning at least. =P
Anyway, I think that's it I believe... You really actually have to play the game to experience its greatness (in my own opinion) and uniqueness as a game. Thanks again.

Toodles for now.
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Life: Self-confidence

[Note: I was debating to myself if I should actually write this post - but as I got good news at the end I'm happy to post it now.]

Okay I'm going to talk about self-confidence. Yes - everyone in some form or another has a lack of it, some more than others but that is a totally different topic altogether.
Recently I applied for a part-time summer job, I'd never applied for one before so I didn't get my hopes up too much. So like you do you email your CV to whatever reference along with a photo which they asked for. Just that got me to the phone interview which really was stupidly easy - "Yes I am very confident in using pc software, etc".

It all gets a bit daunting when you find out this hotel is where the assessment was to be held...

Now comes the time which I got to the assessment day/interview event. The whole entire car journey to the assessment I started to have a very odd but familiar feeling. It's kind of a mixture between having butterflies, feeling sick, and hand shaking... This was the feel that I always used to get when I raided back in WoW. Yup, I'm weird right? Every time I'd get into a raid group the weird feeling began and it always got worse just before a boss - where then I always seemed to have an adrenaline rush during the boss. Anyhoo ~ My body was treating this assessment to be a raid - simple as. It really did help though that once I arrived into the room with all the other students about my age I started to calm down, well we all looked as scared as each other.
Everyone was silent in this waiting room, with no one making conversation with anyone else (great =/ ) and somehow one of the things that wasn't meant to be the icebreaker was - collecting our name badges. It sounds silly, but when everyone is that tense its amazing what you need to start to the art of conversation.
So now the whole thing begins...

First things first: One at a time we had to stand up, say our name, where we was from, as well as a random question given to us. (Great - so we have to think on the spot...) If you was a fruit what would you be and why? Ugh... Fruit? Geez, I wanted the car question! In the end my mind decided that I was a pomegranate because I may be unusual I'm still tasty... That was a true /facepalm moment. After all our introductions we had to sit through a presentation of the two companies and what our overall goal would be.
We was then split up into two groups (as there was only 20 of us and only 2 assessors) where we played a 'game'. We picked a card and then had to defend ourselves along with debating with others of why we should stay on the plane - as someone has to be thrown off the plane or was would crash. Simple right? I had Lady Ga Ga and got no votes to kick me off so I must've done a pretty good job, eh? =] In the end (Sorry, to those not from England and doesn't understand the amusing conicidence this is) Cheryl Cole got kicked off our plane, and in the other room, the other group kicked off Ashley Cole. We felt this was pretty impressive xD
We then got given a sheet of information which we had to make notes from, learn... and then have a test on 10 minutes later (with no notes). It was like being back at school again. The notes were returned to us as we also had to memorise as much a possible as we had to give a 1 minute presentation...alone...with the assessors... I never knew 1 minute could feel so long yet so short at the same time, it was weird =/

Anyhoo... Long story short - I got the phone call yesterday saying that I got the job!

~WOOHOO~

I now actually have something to write on my CV!
Oh and the job I applied for was to be a Microsoft Office Ambassador. So I'll be based in a random shop trying to sell Office, 7, and LifeCam produce to students while also trying to convince them the NEED it, they MUST have and OWN it. >.< Fun times.
Thanks again for listening to me blab my life away.

Toodles for now.
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Rift: Phase 4

Okay, yes this is a little late as we got Phase 4 yesterday (about 4pm UK time if I remember correctly).
Anyway, the usual happened as we've seen with the past few Phases. You get a few new daily quests, another quest that sends you to Moonshade Highlands (again for a single hand-in) just to show off their new guns that they've recently built, and finally the next set of items available from the event manager now that Phase 3 has finished.

The main thing that is annoying me about this event is that it keeps telling you to 'Visit the Runeguard in your capital city'. That is it. It would be nice that we could have a little more direction than being pointed to continuous dailies. I also believe that I really needed to pay attention to The Faceless Man when we visited him in Phase 3, I honestly didn't realise that we'd defeated Jornaru already... But oh well...
Anyhoo ~ Phase 4 brings in plenty more death themed dailies and not just that, they decide that the world doesn't look themed enough.

Originally my characters were on EU-Icewatch which was a fairly small shard but I could easily get away with running around on ultra all day long without and frame rate problems. Since then I joined my guild in moving to Blightweald hoping that moving to a more English populated server recruitment would pick up. The problem now is that as there is so many more people on this server I find it very rare when I could easily run around Meridian on ultra without having a loading screen multiple times. But enough of my sob story, above you can see two images of (almost) the same scenery... (I fell off my rock...) As you can see it's very dark and foggy and you can see bloody nothing! I mean I'm blind in real life and I find this just as difficult as walking in the dark with no glasses on - I really need to start eating more carrots. But yes, this new 'creepy' misty effect definitely makes the mood more grim along with the dailies. At least it isn't as bad as winter in Realm of the Fae, right?

Another scenery addition they have made as well as the fog is the cute little misty effect on the floor. Oh and also those weird death hooky claw things have decided to pop up everywhere as well, which does include the main cities. Luckily you could buy Touch of the Abyss in Phase 3 - you really need the ability to glow bright blue so your friends can see you. Oh and the cute glowing eyes of the Happy Seacap helps as well =3

Toodles for now.
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