Relatives Gone, Back to the Blog!

   Hey, everybody. After a brief hiatus for having family in town, I'm back with plenty to talk about. I've actually considered cutting these back to just Friday updates for the summer, seeing as there isn't too much going on, but I'm going to give it another week or so before I do anything.
   Having forgotten to announce it in my last post on Friday the week before last, I had family in town all last week, hence no blog posts. I just didn't have the time. They're gone now, though, so finally back to my regular posting schedule.
   So recently, I've really been hankering for a good JRPG. The bad news, however, is that I have approximately $0. Since it's launch, Square Enix's new game Bravely Default has been a grandslam among fans of the genre, but I still have yet to pick it up. Recently in Japan, however they released a demo which includes the first four chapters of gameplay. That is one hell of a demo. The demo then has an upgrade fee of what converts to about twenty dollars American. No news on whether or not this demo will be available in the US (please, please, please!) yet. As of right now, the Nintendo E-Shop is undergoing maintenance, unconnected to this, of course, but preventing me from attempting to see if this demo is available. Hopefully by Wednesday I will know, and possibly be playing the demo.
   Speaking of games I can't play because I don't have the right system, as of 17 July, 2014 Playstation owners who preordered Bungie's Destiny will be able to join the beta testing. You lucky bastards. I still don't own the Playstation 4, and I just can't justify buying the PS3 when the next gen console is only a hundred or so more. However, for those of you who are lucky enough to have a PS4 and have preordered this seriously kickass looking game, you will be able to begin killing things at 10:00pm PT. For those of you with the Xbone, you will be able to join the beta on 23 July, at 10:00pm PT. The beta will be offline July 21 and 22 for "scheduled maintenance" and then it will end on 27 July at 11:59pm PT. However, it does appear as though Bungie intends to do multiple phases of beta, akin to the Wildstar model, so you should be able to get in plenty of buggy gameplay before the game officially launches on 9 September.
   Moving onto something I haven't talked about in a fair amount of time-Hearthstone. The July Season began 7 days ago (duh) with it's featured Curse of Naxxramas cardback. Even without the announcement from Team 5, it's pretty obvious that they are pushing to have Adventure Mode out at some point this month, and not a moment too soon, I say. I've been getting my ass handed to me in ranked play for long enough and I can't even look at the arena button at this point. I think we're due for something new to come along and shake things up.
   Personally, I'm still running my budget Zoolock deck, but I also threw together a little aggro mage. The trouble is, I can't seem to get out of the control mindset when I play mage decks, so I don't think it will work out in the long run. I'm also still on a quest to make a viable priest deck (Amaz is my hero). I don't know why I love that hero class so much-I don't even have a priest in WoW-but I really love the way it plays and I'm dying to be able to play it well.
   I've also been practicing my violin a lot recentyl, I finally memorized Beethoven's 5th Sonata Op 24. My left arm is absolutely killing me, though. Everything below the elbow is just really sore, and I can't figure out why. I really don't think I've been pushing myself all that hard this week. Regardless, I think I'll lay off for a day and play some more of dem vidya games.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Time to Pull the Trigger

   Here we find ourselves at yet another Monday. These damn things seem to come around once every seven days or so.
   In all honesty, I do look forward to these posts every Monday. Even when I have a bad day, they're a great way to get me out of my slump. These past couple days have actually been really great. I had my AP English final today, and it was pretty easy. That leaves just one more final-Chemistry. And that one will be super easy. So all I have to do is get up tomorrow, nail that, and then I am officially on summer break! And judging by what we've been planning, it's going to be a good summer.Unfortunately, this will have to wait at least another week, because I'm going to have family in starting Friday or Saturday. Hopefully we'll be launching Geek Council in the next few weeks here, so keep an eye for that on iTunes.
   Now onto some some interesting news, Nintendo recently lost a lawsuit in the U.K. involving a company called Philips, a company making the claim that the company infringed on several of its patents. The judge ruled that Nintendo's Wii, Wii Remote, Nunchuk, Wii Motion Plus remote, Balance Board, and the Wii U console and Gamepad all violated patents held by the Philips company. Philips also filed lawsuits in France and Germany, making the same claims. Nintendo has gone on record as saying that it has every intention appealing the decision, as they believe the patents are invalid.
   As someone with a fairly limited knowledge of even my own country's patent laws, much less those of the international community, I'm not certain of the implications a loss has for Nintendo, although it seems they will most likely end up making some sort of monetary payment to the company. While Nintendo has been having a rough time lately, I hardly seeing this proving to be a killing blow for the company. At the same time, it can hardly be good, so we'll just have to see how this plays out.
   On another note, there's the game No Man's Sky that was recently announced at E3 so far just for the PS4. At this point I'm having a really difficult time picking between the Wii U and the PS4. But, given that I have the 3DS, I think I'm going to have to spring for the PS4 first, just to mix things up. Anyway, if you didn't see it already, here's the trailer for the new sci-fi sandbox game.

   If that doesn't make you want a Playstation 4, I don't think anything ever will. Each player will start on their very own unique, and undiscovered planet. From there you can discover and scan new forms of planets and life throughout this universe, along with the other players.
   This sounds incredibly fun to me, as I love exploration in games, and yet, this has been described by the game's creator as "the most boring way to play the game." What it seems to be, is that enemies will randomly appear throughout the game, and you can either stay and fight, or make an attempt to outrun them. Very little seems to be known about most of the features of the game, as it's team seems fairly intent on keeping most of the features hidden. This mystery is a pretty big draw, and even with the Hoen remakes announced for the 3DS, this is quite easily my most anticipated game from this year's E3. No release date has been pinned down as of this moment.
   That's a lot to look forward to, on top of all the other amazing games that came out of this year's conference.
   Until Wednesday.


Tacos,
Gladdstone