Monday 14 March 2011

Updates

I haven't updated in a few days and I feel guilty about it.

I'll give a Pokemon update. I haven't played this as much as other people so I am going to give up on the Pokemon updates because everyone has already done what I am doing. I'm 5 badges in and I can see it taking me a while to finish because I am putting more time into my college work and don't want to quit my daily exercise routine.
I'm also putting more time into books, on Friday I got 3 books Bret Harts autobiography and Mick Foley's first two autobiography's.
I have been reading Mick's first book Mankind: Have a Nice Day. Recently I made my self read a 400+ page book, this took me two months, now I am reading this book and I don't know if it the material or Mick or what but his book is 700+ pages and I have read over 500 of them in the space of 4 days.

Anyway new stuff soon I promise and I'll try and keep to my promise and not keep doing wrestling and games.

Thursday 10 March 2011

Failing

Well I gave it my all and revised every day for my first AS exam but I still failed. Well shit.
Oh well I'll just have to work harder.
I look at exams in two ways. If I fail then I have to work harder so that I can pass.
If I pass then I have to continue to work hard so that I can continue to pass. If I give up now then I would have lost 5 months of my life that I will never get back and that isn't something that I want to have regrets over so I have to continue to work and learn and make sure that I can pass my resit.

I'm not bitter and I know well that I choose to do the subjects I did. I choose the odd mix of Fine Art, Media and Chemistry. Chemistry is the odd one out here and to be honest I wanted to do physics but I didn't have a choice in the matter it was that or art so I picked art and went for second best with science.

Chemistry CH1 is hard, like I don't know why we didn't do CH2 first because it is much easier, CH1 wasn't pure chemistry and there was a lot of stuff that I struggled to understand. Ch2 though is more pure chemistry and I am understanding it quite well.

It could just be that I don't have the talent for the likes of Science and Maths, I was good at it when I was younger but over the years I have taken leaps and bounds in what was my weakest subject English. I suppose you could say that I have evened out and I would like to think that it is going to help me but at times I can't help but think what if I was still all science and maths? Would I have passed then? It isn't worth wasting my time thinking about such things. I just need to focus and continue to improve. Some people say that the first exam is always the hardest, if they are right then good if that is the case then I should find them easier every time.

I don't intend to quit I want to finish what I started even if it takes longer than I hoped.

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Filler

I haven't posted much these last few days because I have been busy so here is some pointless filler that explains the last few weeks of my life.

I've decided that I can't be arsed with retro game systems anymore. The NES, SNES, Master System and Mega Drive may all be classics but for the sake of everything I might as well get rid of them. So I have, in the last two weeks I have sold nearly all of it and I only have a few left overs the money is quite good and there is more to come. I won't really miss the consoles and playing the games won't be an issue because there are other ways of playing them, most classic games have been re-released in some form whether that be a compilation or download or what ever there is always a way to play most of these games. Truth is the main reason for selling was convenience, sure blowing carts may be part of the experience but making the things work can be a pain not to mention because I live in PAL territory everything is slowed down 15%. I recently played the American versions of some of my old NES and Mega Drive games and to be honest I won't be missing them because the games are much better in the NTSC 60Hz format.

Anyway all this selling has left me with more money and free space than I have ever had so what better way to spend the money than on new furniture, in the past week I have torn town wardrobes and cupboards to replace them with clothes racks and shelves and it looks much nicer. I also got a 28 inch CRT telly for a quid which is pretty nice.

I should be responsible and save all that money I made but no matter what way you look at it I still have more than I did before so I may as well spend some of it, on what I don't know.

WWF No Way Out 2002



I actually watched No Way Out on Sky Sports nine years ago, yes nine years, it has been that long. It is always nice to go back to the stuff that I can hardly remember.

No Way Out 2002 has 7 matches on the card as well as a promo from the NWO who debuted that night.

The show starts with the debut of the NWO despite being one of the things that killed WCW the NWO was met quite well by fans. Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan made their way to the ring and explained that they were not at WWE to cause trouble and that they were just fans who wanted to hang out with the boys in the back. Thankfully the promo was no longer than it needed to be and it served its purpose of making us aware of the NWO.

Match 1 - Tag Team Turmoil
This is a 6 team elimination tag match where in which two teams go at it in the ring and a new one enters whenever a team is pinned.
The 6 teams involved in the match were:
Scotty 2 Hotty & Albert - Scotty was never going to win this but as always he did his job as the hype man and got the crowd in the right mood.
Christian & Lance Storm - The heel tag team didn't get any cheers nor did they get heel heat likes boos, crowd don't care for them that much.
The Hardy Boyz - The Hardy Boyz had been gone for a while so they got a good pop from he crowd when they returned.
The Dudley Boyz - The Dudleys as always came in with a bang and got a crowd reaction that matched that of the Hardy Boyz.
Billy & Chuck - They are not a bad team or anything but compared to the Dudleys and the Hardys no one really cared about them.
APA - The APA were the last team to enter and got a decent crowd pop.

The match started with Scotty 2 Hotty & Albert going up against Christian and Albert. All for put up a decent performance. Scotty went for the worm on Lance Storm but has hit by Christians Unprettier. After that the Hardy Boyz returned with Lita, at that point it because a game of who could reverse the most finishers. hardys got the pin after hitting Christian with a Twist of Fate and Sawnton Bomb. The Dudleys come out and the two teams brawl for a few minutes, Jeff Hardy takes out Bubba Ray Dudley by somersaulting out of the ring and Matt Hardy gets a roll up pin on D-Von Dudley. The Dudleys kick off and beat up the Hardys, they 3D Jeff head first into the outer ring mat. Billy & Chuck enter the ring and it becomes a handicap match as only Matt can fight, the two easily walk over Matt Hardy and get the pin. The APA comes out the two teams fight for a few minutes and the APA win and become number one contenders after Bradshaw hits Billy (or was it Chuck) with a clothesline from hell.
In all because of the nature of the match there wasn't enough time for wrestling so the teams beat the crap out of each other.

Match 2 - Goldust Vs. Rob Van Dam

This is one of those filler matches, the type that are there to help fill the 2 1/2 hours. Lots of mind games by Goldust and lots of high flying by RVD. For the first half of the match we see RVD getting beaten up by Goldust, RVD turns it around and hits Goldust with some kicks and a rolling thunder, he goes for a 5 star frog splash but misses, Goldust goes for a curtain call, RVD counters and continues to fight back he hits Goldust with a spinning heel kick and pins him after hitting a 5 star frog splash. A short match and not that interesting.

Match 3 - World Tag Team Championship Tazz & Spike Dudley Vs. Booker T & Test

For the most of this match Spike and Tazz get their asses kicked by Booker T and Test they throw the odd counter move to help get them back in the match. After the initial beat down Tazz and Spike turn it around, Tazz spends more time in the ring beating up Booker T and Test, Spike doesn't do much in this match, Tazz gets the win using the Tazzmission on Test after he is pushed by the ref. Again short match and not too interesting.

Match 4 - Brass Knuckles on a pole match for the intercontinental championship William Regal Vs. Edge

This is a Vince Russo style gimmick match where the two wrestlers have to fight over an object on a pole. This is actually a normal match you don't have to use the Brass Knuckles to win you just have to pin the opponent which kind of kills the match really. If you get the beat down on your opponent why would you risk your dominance by climbing the pole where you are defenseless, this kind of gimmick match defines pointless. Anyway the two pair up well and it would have been a good match if they didn't have to fight over the brass knuckles on a pole. Regal wins after pulling a second pair of brass knuckles from his tights so instead of fairly winning with brass knuckles he illegally wins with brass knuckles. Bit of a waste if you ask me.

Match 5 - The Undertaker Vs. The Rock

After losing to Jericho at the Royal Rumble The Rock had nothing to do so he was thrown in a short feud with The Undertaker where Taker was mad with The Rock for taking the piss out of him for being knocked out of the Royal Rumble by Maven from tough enough series 1.
This wasn't a great match but then again there was nothing at stake like Goldust and RVD before them this match was there to fill the 2 1/2 hours. The match had a slow pace and for for first half we watched The Rock get beat around by Undertaker both in the ring and out the ring. We see the two fight though the crowd and the arena, Undertaker beats The Rock around some more, the match starts to become really tired and dull so The Rock starts to fight back but Undertaker chock slams him. Soon enough Undertaker gets bored of the dullness and takes matters into his own hands but pulling a lead pipe out of his motorcycle, just then Ric Flair runs in and attacks Undertaker, Take knocks Flair out with the big boot. The Rock gets up and puts Taker into a sharp shooter to turn the match around, Vince McMahon runs in to distract The Rock, Take goes to Tombstone The Rock but Ric Flair hits him with the lead pipe, The Rock hits Taker with the Rock Bottom and gets the pin. In all this was a dull boring match by the two of them and it will be easily forgotten.

Match 6 - #1 contender match Kurt Angle Vs. Triple H
Triple H won the Royal Rumble after being out for 8 months with an injury and became the #1 contender for the WWF Undisputed championship at Wrestlemania. Kurt Angle blamed Triple H for ruining his chance to win the Rumble on his first try and wanted revenge. Triple H was having marriage problems with Stephanie and was on the verge of breaking up with her, she didn't want to lose Triple H so she lied to him about being pregnant so they they would renew their wedding vows. Triple H found out about this and split with her. Stephanie wanting revenge made her self the special ref for the match.
The match starts off quite quickly with both wrestlers showing an impressive display of offense, Stephanie is knocked out after being hit with a Kurt Angle clothesline. After that the match goes on and it continues to impress the Pace is constant and the two are giving it everything they have got. Stephanie soon enough returns to the ring and makes herself the ref again, thankfully she takes another ref bump and is KO'd again. Tom White becomes ref again but is attacked by Stephine who will do what it takes to see that Triple H loses. Kurt Angle gets up and nails Triple H across the head with a chair and pins Triple H to win the match. Kurt must have hit Triple H hard because he vomited after the match.
In all it was a pretty good match just a shame that Stephanie was involved.

Match 7 - Undisputed Championship Chris Jericho Vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin
This was an OK match but it isn't particularly memorable. The two give the type of title match that you would expect, it is long and evenly paced, the early parts of the match are spent with the 2 wearing each other down, the match becomes much faster paced towards the end. There was nothing wrong with the match itself it was watchable. The match ends when the NWO run in and attack Austin giving Jericho the win.

In all it was an alright PPV, it wasn't anything special though and its only real purpose was to build up to Wrestlemania X8 that came a month later. The PPV is included in the WWE Tagged Classics range and is bundled with Backlash 2002. As tagged classics go it is one of the cheaper ones but then again these two Pay Per Views will be easily forgotten.

Sunday 6 March 2011

The lack of poekmon.

I said that I would update on Pokemon White every day but I have been very busy so I'll play catch up tomorrow. It might be better to do that because I can make the posts bigger and go over more stuff that way. So in all it is more conveniant.

Friday 4 March 2011

pokemon White Log: Day two

So I've just finished my second day on pokemon white and I'm just over 20 hours in.

Continuing from where I left off yesterday I caught some new pokemon and used them to beat the second gym. Gamefreak has decided to make poekmon locations more coveniant, before it would be that the pokemon near the gym would be the same type as the gym, now the rule is that the pokemon near the gym are the pokemon that match the gyms weakness so there were many fighting type pokemon near the normal Gym. I caught a Throh (a fighting pokemon that does judo) and without training it at all used it to completely walk over the gym.
After getting the basic badge I ran into team plasma again who have stolen a fossil from the musieum so it is up to me to get it back. I headed into the woods which was full of grass and bug pokemon (the same type as the next gym) and I was able to get the skull back. With that done I headed out of the forest and came to that bridge and city that everyone was making a big fuss about when the game was announced last year. So I run across this bridge (it takes like a minute to get across) and I got to the big city and saw the fancy spinning roads with my own two eyes, it was all very pretty. After sight seeing and beating up some break dancers I found myself fighting team Plasma again after they stole a pokemon from one of my in game rivals iwht that out of the way I challanged the bug gym thinking I could walk over it with my bird, I was wrong. I keep an unwriten rule with gyms and it is that you should get through it in one go because of this and the fact that I never bother buying items I ended up getting my ared kicked by the gym leader twice. After that I thought sod this and I went back to the woods to level grind, this meant crossing the bridge again.Turns out my bird pokemon was a level away from evolving so I just headed straight back to the gym and took the badge that was rightfully mine.
Since then I have moved onto route 4 where I have fought both of my rivals again and as always they stood no chance. I should have gone route 4 before facing the bug gym because you can get fire pokemon here. I suppose it doesn't matter now. Anyway more level grinding, hopefully the pace of the game will start to quicken.

So after 10 hours of play: I have seen 36 pokemon and have obtained 23 of them. My party has had a few changes:
Panpour (FRO) Lv.20 - I'm still using this pokemon, it is useable but it isn't a game changer so unless it evolves or something I will replace it when a better water type shows up.
Tranquill LV.25 - My Pidove evolved and now it is an almost unstoppable force with a great movestead, it already knows Roost and Detect.
Roggenrola (The Rock) Lv.19 - I'm still sticking with this little one, not a very good attacker but it's type is useful, hopefully it will evolve to become a tank.
Herdier (Road Dogg) Lv.20 - He is still very handy and I can't see him going anywhere.
Servine (Stone Cold) Lv.24 - Snivy evoloved and now it only knows grass moves. I hope to god there is a water, rock or ground gym later on because it will destroy it.
Throh Lv.22 - Awesome fighting Pokemon who can take a lot of hits and at the same time deliver a lot of damage, I love it.

These daily updates will probably get shorter over time now that my initial reaction to the game has died down but I am still interested in what else the game may have to show me.

Thursday 3 March 2011

Pokemon White Log: Day one.

So today I went into town and bought Pokemon White after saying that I wasn't going to bother oh isn't it funny how things don't go as planned. truth is I had some games to trade so I got it for the sweet price of £3.
Anyway after a good 5 hours worth of playtime before the game has even come out I have to say that this isn't simply more of the same. I don't know why but there is something about Pokemon White that feels fresh, I think it may be how they have adjusted the direction slightly.

Once again I am playing as a boy who has been sent on a journey by a scientist to fill an electronic encyclopedia that can instantly record the data of any Pokemon you find which is funny because this suggests that the pokedex already has all 500 odd Pokemon recorded on it and that the data has to be unlocked by finding and capturing all Pokemon, is it not possible to just jail break the thing, take it to the professor and be like "lol, dun".
Anyway starting my journey I decided to go with the grass starter as it was the least stupid looking of the three. After a fairly well done hour long tutorial where I was introduced to my 3 main rivals and the evil team I was ready to go. I caught some Pokemon and I even had one given to me for free for the sole purpose of using it to beat the first gym. I like the idea of the first gym because the leader is different depending on which starter you choose, it is much kinder in that respect than say Pokemon Red where the first two gyms were Rock and Water putting your Charmander at a huge disadvantage, this problem was around in all the Pokemon games. Pokemon Gold had the first gym be flying screwing over anyone who choose Chikorita, Ruby put the Rock gym first making it harder for Torchic users, Diamond had you start with rock again though the game balanced it out better by having the grass gym straight after.

In terms of leveling the difficulty curve has shot up slightly it may just be down to the fact that the towns are closer together than they used to be, from the starting town you could run to the second gym in less than 5 minutes, i ain't joking the towns are that close together because of the shorter routes it feels like the game is harder, had the routes been more stretched out this might not have been the case because of this design I find myself level grinding quite a lot.

After 5 hours play I have seen 20 Pokemon and obtained 11 with my party consisting of these Pokemon:
-Snivy Lv.16 - This is the grass started and because he is a snake I called him Stone Cold as in the wrestler because his nickname was the Texas Rattle Snake.
-Blitzle Lv.11 - I called this one Awesome because of its design, it is a Zebra with a lightning bolt sticking out of his head. Sadly it isn't as awesome as it looks and is pretty weak I'm hoping it becomes good after I train it some more.
-Roggenrola Lv.14 - Possibly one of the most stupid Pokemon names to date. This thing is basically Geodude but it isn't a ground type meaning that electric attacks hurt it, damn. it is still pretty handy though being rock type and all.
-Herdier Lv.16 - This was a different Pokemon before but it evolved, this is the obligatory Dog pokemon and it is this generations Linoone meaning it gets in the party by default. I name it Road Dogg after the wrestler.
-Pidove lv.15 - I haven't given this one a name because my mind went blank when doing so. Pidove is this generations bird Pokemon and it is a pigeon, literally, it isn't a Pokemon it is a bloody pigeon. Seeing it makes me want them to use Pidgey again.
-Panpour Lv.14 - This was the Pokemon that was given away to me for free so that I could beat the first gym it is one of 3. there are 3 elemental monkeys in this game fire, water and grass, this is the water one. I called it Fro because it has an Afro. Come think of it the Fire starter from last gen was a monkey doesn't it seem like a cop out having 2 fire chimps two generations in a row?
I caught some other Pokemon but they suck hence why I ain't using them.

With one gym beat after 5 hours I can see this being the longest Pokemon game ever made which wouldn't be a bad thing because the more story events the better once the single player game is done with you are left with the multiplayer and even that grows tiresome eventually.

So that's my first day on Pokemon White this time tomorrow I should be done with the second gym and I would have moved on to bigger things.