So…

My last post was nearly two months ago. It was during orientation week and the night in particular was really enjoyable. However, I came home to read a troubling email from Full Sail University. I failed my entry exam. That would mean that, going by what was explained with the entry test, I would either have to change courses or not attend.

After a few phone calls and a meeting I came to my conclusion on what can be done. At the start of August I took college math and English composition during that month of school while my roommate, also in the program, took pre-calculus and English composition. After the first month of classes I retook the entry exam and passed it.

I’m currently in the middle of taking pre-calculus and an ethics and psychology class. My roommate is constantly talking about his programming classes.

September 6th Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine was released for PC and major consoles. I pre-ordered a copy the night before release and used a VPN to unlock it early. I’ve been having a blast from the get go with the game. The campaign had “Hard” as its most difficult setting. I spent around 7-8 hours on the campaign on hard. The enemies and encounters were fun to play and fun to look at.

I’m currently rank 30-31 in multiplayer. I spend time playing all of the classes and a variety of load-outs, but I find myself preferring the bolter over other weapons. I even had a change to record and upload some videos on the game so soon after release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGzLHs9wPT8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8-pOhY_5Vg

I’m really excited about these videos. I’ve never posted a video before that got that many views, likes or even any comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby Steps…

Hey there, I’ve been pretty busy as of late. I moved to my new apartment on July 15th, and then spent the time up until now getting my footing and getting ready for Full Sail University. I just got done with my first day of Orientation, and it ended up both horrible and great. You see, I’m not naturally good at Math, and I’m a little behind compared to my friend who’s attending the same program as me. Because of this, I’m worried of my entrance exam test scores. It wouldn’t be a big deal if all I had to do was take it and expect remedial, I want remedial classes. However, if you score low enough, they can turn you away from the program entirely, screwing up all I’ve worked toward. So here’s hoping.

After my first day of orientation I had dinner at Chili’s with a couple of admission councilors and other students. Spent the time talking, laughing and meeting some great people. I’m looking forward to my time spent here at Full Sail. I’ll know my test scores tomorrow so I can make my plans from there.

Orientation is a week-long process, so I’ll give an update this weekend. Thanks again.

The Newbie Perspective

What is the Newbie Perspective and why haven’t I posted anything about it yet? The header of the website clearly says “The Industry from a Newbie” and yet I haven’t talked about the industry at all, save for maybe the Steam sale. Now my whole purpose for this blog was a bit of practice on my part, both to help me improve my research and writing, while helping me become more informed myself of what is going on in the industry. You see, I’m going to be a programmer, some day, some how, I’ll be working on games that we all can enjoy, or even hate if I end up working for Treyarch. To accomplish this, I’m going to Full Sail University, and I plan to be focusing not only on my school work, but to also help network myself to potential employers and co-workers. I always wanted to have a sort of a small voice in the industry, something that has a niche group of followers, at least.

So, what does this all mean? It means I wish to share with you my experiences at school, and with finding a job. I don’t expect to hit it big right off the bat, or to always have fun, but I’m determined to make this work. It’s because I’m passionate for the industry, for what it was, what it is, and for what it will become, if we push it in the right direction. We can enjoy the wonderful escapism that games provide. We can explore human emotions in a way that hasn’t ever been touched by film or books. We can do, as a group, what no other medium in existence can do. I hope you’ll stick with me to see that day.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me so far, thank you to those who are reading this now. Even if this somehow falls into obscurity and forgotten, I’ll remember what I wrote and I’ll feel better for it.

Steam Summer Camp Sale So Far…

We are on day 4 of the Steam Summer Camp Sale and so far I’m slightly disappointing. I really shouldn’t be, considering the deals are incredible just like in other sales, but I’m just sad that none of the daily deals really interest me. So far I’ve purchased The Witcher 2, BIT.TRIP Runner and was gifted a copy of Super Meat Boy. I have spent my time playing The Witcher 2, BIT.TRIP Runner, as well as games that I didn’t buy at this sale, such as Bad Company 2, Oblivion (Nerihm Mod) and World of Warcraft. I’d like to talk to you guys today about BIT.TRIP Runner:

BIT.TRIP Runner was developed by Gaijin Games and was released on Steam February 28th, 2011. BIT.TRIP Runner is now the fourth game in the series of BIT.TRIP games, following after BIT.TRIP Beat, Core, and Void, and would soon be followed by BIT.TRIP Flux and Fate. The game is simple, it’s a rhythm based game where your actions contribute to the music. You run a linear path from left to right and you have to jump, slide, leap, or punch through obstacles to get to the finish line. Each action that you perform adds to the music being played, and there are powerups that change the music dramatically.

Just like BIT.TRIP Beat, which I have played, it looks fun, simple, and most of all, easy. I couldn’t have been more wrong, however, for the game turned out to be a living reincarnation of Hitler himself in the form of difficulty. It may be that I just suck at any rhythm based game, but there are parts where you are just going to get frustrated at the lack of clairvoyance that you’ll need for some of the levels. I found myself dying multiple times before getting the layout of the level down.

However, when I got a level down, I had a fantastic experience. The music in the game is so energetic and upbeat that it’s hard to get mad at the game. At points where I would normally yell at a game for killing me for the Nth time, I could do nothing but smile and utter “Come on… this sucks” while I continue to try and finish that level. Both BIT.TRIP Runner and Beat, which I’ve both tried, are excellent games and are worth almost any price. Even if the game isn’t going on sale as a Daily Deal again, you should pick the game up (You, yes you). You’ll have a wonderful time playing this game, no matter how many times you die.

Another thing I’d like to share this wonderful Sunday is something that happened while playing World of Warcraft with a friend of mine. Yes, obviously World of Warcraft isn’t something that was as important or relevant to some people as it was years ago, however I still have lots of a fun with the game and would still recommend it to friends. Anyway, while using the dungeon finder to complete a Shadowfang Keep instance, we came up to a boss who stood next to a quest NPC, of all things. That NPC was just chilling there, as you’ll see in an image below. I could picture the boss trying to understand why he was just standing there, staring at the door where our group would enter through. After defeating the boss, something special happened. The quest NPC yelled “FOR THE HORDE!” and leaped through the second story floor. Better yet, I even have a recording, so please enjoy.

Oh, and you might want to turn the music down, you’ll see why.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkGHvR5SBwA

And before I forget, I’ll be starting to pack for a move on the 15th, so I’m sorry if I miss a post. I’ll try to continue to make interesting posts on things I find throughout the week, and/or a weekend post. Happy 4th of July (when it is tomorrow) everyone!

Steam Summer Camp Sale

Steam Summer Camp Sale is here, ready for us to spend our hard-earned money on. Similar to the Christmas sale by Steam, there will be Daily Deals that Steam updates at around 1:00PM EST. These Daily Deals are about the cheapest a game may go on sale, so if you are waiting for something to get cheaper, this is where it will show up. There are also featured packs, which include multiple games, either from a franchise or from a single publisher or developer studio. There’s a Publisher Catalog as well, which lists sales of games from specific publishers.

The best possible course of action to get the most out of this sale is for you to be patient. If there is a game you want on the Publisher Catalog, wait until the last day of the sale (July 10th) to buy it, checking back every day to see if your game of choice is placed on the Daily Deals list. There are certain titles, like Borderlands: GOTY, that can also be bought as a pack, giving you multiple copies of the game to gift out to anyone. Try finding friends or trustworthy people to help split the cost of these packs. You can use this to save money on specific titles, as well as help you limit the amount of impulse buying that you do.

Just like in the Potato update, there are a list of achievements to complete each day (these achievements come from games participating in the sale). Each achievement earned adds a virtual ticket to a virtual jar, which you can spend on virtual prizes. The prizes include various in-game items such as hats, levels and NPCs. Each ticket also gives you an entry in a grand prize drawing at the end of the sale, where 100 Steam members will receive their top 10 games on their wishlist free.

Even if at times I pick at Steam for its flaws, one major thing it has in its favor are events like this sale. I love the thought put into each event, and the participation involved surpasses any other event that I can think of in video games. It is always great to see a company like Valve try to give a sort of team-effort feel to their events, and making them fun, challenging, and involving. During this sale, I’ll talk about games I’m interested in buying, games I’ve bought and achievements I’m working towards. I like many others want to get some of that cool virtual swag from the prize booth. So, good luck to everyone involved, and make sure to leave yourself enough money to eat and you should do fine.

Stakeout The Movie

Hello everyone, my name is Alexander Griffin  and I am here today with my first update in The Rest Digital. In this section I am going to talk about video games, old and new, that excite me or give me an interesting topic to talk about. Here I will also release videos, images, whatever that I have made. This might be a video of me playing a video game, or providing a download to a new program I made.

Today I come to you with a Call of Duty: Black Ops montage video of me playing with the Stakeout. The Stakeout is an interesting weapon, with some interesting advantages and disadvantages. First, the Steakout has an incredible range for a shotgun when paired with the grip attachment. And the disadvantages of a small clip are negated by a decent reload speed and pumping of your shotgun after each shot fired. If you land your shots correctly and make sure to keep your ammunition clip full, you can become a very threatening opponent to the other team. An interesting video on the Stakeout is from a YouTube user named XboxAhoy, who has his own series of weapon guides for both Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2. Check out the guys channel, he has some really insightful and interesting videos, there will be a link at the end of the post.

I recently got an urge to start recording videos of me playing video games and posting them on the internet (bad idea, I know). I have no clue where this idea comes from but it takes more effort than I originally thought, especially if I want to keep my YouTube channel updated regularly. I found some trouble editing raw Fraps footage I recorded, as it chugged and slowed my video editor. I’ll need to find a better way to edit the raw video, but as with everything, this will come in time.

Link to Stakeout The Movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMxOW1I-fPY

Link to XboxAhoy’s Channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/XboxAhoy

Link to my YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Ularg7070?feature=mhee