• Rocking the boat (15)
  Finish ahead of your senior team-mate in your first season with a new team
• Crushing victory (20)
  Outclass your team mate at each race, over one season
• Consistency is the key (25)
  Score a point in every round of a season

Maybe after I finish it completely – and I finish up doing my Let’s Play of Pokémon Black – I might do a Let’s Play of one of my future seasons in the game on a harder difficulty, which should ideally offset the fact I’ll be in a much faster car, particularly as I have both Force India and BMW Sauber interested in my services for next year

FUCKING EMOLGA

Emolga (Japanese: エモンガ Emonga) is a dual-type Electric/Flying Pokémon introduced in Generation V.

Emolga is a rodent-like Pokémon, primarily white in coloration, that most resembles a flying squirrel. It possesses facial features similar to Pachirisu’s, such as its eyes, tiny nose, and yellow cheek patches. Its ears, positioned at the top of its head, are rounded in shape and black in coloration, with yellow and white sections of coloration in the inside of its ears. Emolga sports a vaguely hood-like patterning of black around its head, with a spiky extension of the pattern above its face. Emolga possesses winglike, yellow-colored flaps connected to its three-fingered arms. Its feet are white-colored and fairly small and its black-colored tail is in a jagged shape.

Similar to Pikachu, Emolga can store electricity on its electric sacs located on its cheeks. When threatened, it releases this electricity to fend off other Pokémon. Emolga lives in the treetops and glides from tree to tree using its cape-like patagium, sometimes discharging its electricity.

This fucking thing. Oh my god, THIS FUCKING THING.

Emolga is the worst possible thing to come out of Pokémon in Generation V. It’s Electric/Flying dual typing gives it immunity to it’s primary weakness: Ground; and instead replaces it with a weakness to Rock and Ice. Normally this is fine, as the only other Pokémon with this typing are either legendary (Zapdos, Thundurus), or only acquired the typing in Gen V and aren’t available in Unova anyway (Fan Rotom).

However the primary problem with this thing is the fact that it appears so early in the game, and when it does start to appear, it appears in force. Through a combination of it’s 103 base Speed, Static ability, and early access to Double Team; this is the most annoying Pokémon you will come up against, especially if you lack the necessary tools to be able to dispatch it.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that Emolga appears prominently in the Electric-type Gym of Unova, in Nimbasa City. It is the 4th Gym of the region, which differs to the other Electric Gyms in Vermilion (3rd), Mauville (3rd), and Sunyshore (8th).

Another part is the lack of availability of Electric-types in general in Unova. At that point in the game only Blitzle/Zebstrika and Emolga are available, and as such the Gym also features only those two evolutionary lines. The other Electric-types of the region: Tynamo/Eelektrik/Eelektross, Joltik/Galvantula and Stunfisk all appear after the 5th Gym.

And finally, the lack of viable counters. The Ice-type does not come into play until the next town, which you cannot access before the 4th Gym battle. As for the Rock-type, there are a few more options, but unless you already have them, it may be too “out of the way” to bother with. Pokémon-wise, there are Roggenrola/Boldore/Gigalith or Dwebble/Crustle. Both have a high physical Attack and Defense, but suffer with a lack of Special Defense, opening them up to Volt Switch. Also, their lower Speed means getting an attack off before a Double Team is nigh impossible.

As well as that, the available moves aren’t great either. Smack Down is the best as it renders them vulnerable to Ground, but requires that it actually hits, which may be a pain given Double Team. Rock Slide requires a higher level, and has less accuracy, as does Rock Tomb from TM39 found in the desert.

In general, these fucking things were designed to make you tear your hair out, swear profusely at your DS, and to rage-eject the game cartridge before running it over with your car. Add to this the annoying strategy they employ with the Gym Leader (Double Team, then Aerial Ace in case you try the same, and Volt Change to GTFO to Zebstrika when the going gets too tough).

FUCKING EMOLGAS.

PS: On my Facebook page, you can find an album of images with other people’s expressions of anger, with regards to these little rodents. Also, feel free to express your anger at these things in the comments, or rant on Twitter with the hashtag #fuckingemolgas.

Been spending most of my time working on more videos for my YouTube channel. Hopefully all this effort will pay off soon, as right now I feel like I’m putting a ton more work in that several high-profile YouTubers who dapple in the same subject areas as I do, who are still more popular and gaining even more views and subs every day, whereas I’m sitting here just hoping that even a few hundred people will watch it.

I mean, I really do like making these videos, not really because I’m specifically trying to get views and subscribers on YouTube, rather I just want to make them, even if only ten people decide to watch it, as long as even one of those people like it, I consider it a success.

Yay, for the Intensity Pro!

So now that I have my Intensity, I definitely think I’m going to be making way more console videos. It probably won’t eclipse the amount of PC videos I make, but there should still be a decent amount of them. The fun part is that even though I’m already recording and editing them at 720p, I still have the capability to turn them into 1080i if I really want to show off

After a very quiet Friday (which was the actual day itself), with just a trip down to the bar in TGI Friday’s in the Centre for some bar food, cocktails and watching the Dutch dump Brazil out of the World Cup; I met up with a few friends for most of the day on the Saturday, with some general hanging around and doing whatever came to mind. One thing of note was the odd trip to the Asian market grabbing some very cheap Pocky, which I unfortunately munched through rather damn quickly after getting him, seeing as it’s so damn addictive. I really need to make some plans to go get a crate of so of them and start stocking them up in the wardrobes before Eirtakon…

Speaking of that, I really need to go sort out my plans for Final Form Sora now that I have time – and money.

Dinner with family later on that night was a massive affair – sixteen of us in all squeezing into the restaurant part of Ho Wun here in Dunboyne. It was a great night, getting everybody together for a night out to celebrate not only me, but my aunt Paula as well (whose birthday was the day before mine!), before heading home for more drinks and cake. And unfortunately no dog seeing as a couple of my aunts have some issues with canines.

Felt great the next day after a great 24 hours prior to it – and maybe a little bit because of the “personal ATM” feeling I had in my wallet following it.

So, what’s left in the summer? Well, finding a damn Blackmagic Intensity Pro somewhere in this country would be a great start, as I want to get into streaming my 360 online and maybe doing a Let’s Play of something on it – specifically Naughty Bear, which I was given on my birthday itself and I haven’t yet played it because I want to LP it blind if I can…

There’s been an awful lot of playing, a lot of editing, rendering and definitely a lot of uploading. On average, each video takes about 12-13 minutes of gameplay, about 20 minutes raw editing, between an hour and a half to two hours of rendering, and depending on where I am and what sort of connection I have, anywhere between seven minutes and four hours to upload to YouTube.

The result is this:

I’ll be back amongst the living soon though, don’t worry! Especially with college starting up again at the end of the month. I really should work on a nice backlog of gameplay in the meantime…