Arivall’s and Departures

I’ve been gone for a while — not that you care or anything, but there are pretty good reasons for it. In the words of the ever-lyrical T.I. “Big shit poppin’.

First of all, I got a new phone. An AT&T Tilt, this thing lets me do a metric-fuck ton of other things that a phone shouldn’t be able nor allowed to do. Like creating a Word document and sending it out in the middle of my English III class. I Don’t have internet access unless I there’s WiFi, but even so, it’s a damn nice phone. I’m pretty comfortable to type on, and amazingly small for the utility it provides.

Secondly, I got a “new” 360 yesterday from Microsoft, as my slightly post-launch 360 finally gave in to the dreaded three flashing lights, I hardly knew ye.

But there is good news, after two weeks of staring at Burnout: Paradise and DMC4, Microsoft joined forces with Fed-Ex to home deliver a replacement so that I may resume my home console experience.

While my 360 was gone, my PC was getting a ton more attention than it’s used to. Played through Half-Life 2: Episode Two again, still one of my favorite games of all time, so amazing. And a toooon of World of Warcraft, it’s stupid the amount of time I’ve logged in WoW through the past three months, I’m almost afraid to type in ‘”played”.

Now, back to console land. First thing I did was shove in Devil May motherfucking Cry 4, this is how Capcom is getting their groove back (along with a little thing called Resident Evil 5). Keep in mind that I’m a Devil May Cry virgin. In most games cutscenes tend to not do it for me in most games, usually they just take me out of the experience, but what I’ve seen out of DMC4 so far is pure brilliance — the graphical fidelity, camera angles, transitions, voices, music, and over-
the-top stylish action all come together to create a cohesive success that I would easily reccomend to anyone.

The game itslef reminds me that it’s been far too long since I’ve played a fast paced third person action game. As long as it keeps it’s smooth 60 FPS, the fights are pretty intense and in conjunction with the pacing makes it a damn good game, so far. I don’t wanna in essensce review the thing because I’m not very far and it’s possible that it’ll all fall apart - ahem, Crysis. But I will say that Nero is a fucking great character, he’s a complete badass abd he’s made me chuckle a few times already. I think I may like hime more than Dante.

Shit-fuck. Now I want Devil May Cry, cursing makes it feel better.

And most importantly, Ripten.com, the place that’s giving me a chance to have my words looked at, praised, criticised, and read. (i.e. not here) The founder, Chady Lakkis is one determined guy. He started Ripten about nine months ago, I’ve joined the team and have been contributing on a near-daily basis since.

At first, I wasn’t so keen on the idea of news reporting — I was sure that game reviewing was gonna be my thing, but I gotta say, I don’t think I’d be against being a news editor for a gaming publication.

I’m veering of course again, I need sleep. Math class is soon, should be able to get some there.

Back to Ripten, we recently had a redesign and it looks damn sexy, if I do say so myself. We’ve also added a forum, everything’s shaping up well and We’re doing great. some interesting things are going on right now, especially with GDC coming up. I won’t be going (damnit!) but we will be covering it.

Now, I may be a little biased, but Ripten has a lot of potential and a ton of promise. This is something I’m proud to be a part of. Huge shouts go out to the Ripten team. And special shout to Chad who has put me in a position where I am published and viewed and viewed internationally. I owe it to you, man.

That about covers it, for now. I’ll see about writing on a more regular basis, but I don’t wanna promise anything to all one of you. Not sure if I’ll have time and false hope=not good. If you really love me and want to support me, then head on over to Ripten.com

/plug